Outgoing Trump Pardons 73 Including Steve Bannon

US President Donald Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of 143 people, hours before the end of his presidential term.

The people US president has granted clemency to range from rappers to financiers and lobbyists including Steve Bannon who was a key adviser in the 2016 presidential run, according to the Guardian.

Bannon was charged last year with swindling Trump supporters over an effort to raise private funds to build the president’s wall on the US-Mexico border.

White House officials had advised the outgoing president against pardoning Bannon, who left the Trump administration in late 2017, according to local media.

"President Donald J Trump granted pardons to 73 inpiduals and commuted the sentences of an additional 70 inpiduals," the White House said in a statement.

White House officials had advised the outgoing president against granting clemency to Bannon, US media reported.

He leaves office on Wednesday, when Joe Biden, a Democrat, is sworn in as the next US president. The Republican president, who will skip Biden's inauguration, was not expected to pardon himself, members of his family or lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was at the forefront of the US president's unsuccessful efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential vote.

Trump also pardoned rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black, who were charged with federal weapons offenses, and former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was serving a 28-year prison term on corruption charges.