Mr. Gregory said his and his wife's applications for pardons had languished for nearly 18 months at the Justice Department.
If the administration doesn't aggressively process applications for pardons, some older inmates could die behind bars under Trump.
But over the last two months the president has quietly denied roughly 1,000 applications for pardons and commutations, clearing nearly a third of the backlog from the previous administration.
The Justice Department is usually given the chance to review applications for pardons, a department spokeswoman said, but the president has absolute authority to grant them.
In a speech before the Arkansas Legislature on Jan . 17on his final trip as president, Bill Clinton described his amazement at the last-minute avalanche of applications for pardons and prison-sentence commutations.
In the last three months of Mr. Clinton's presidency, the Justice Department said it received more than 1,000 applications for pardons and commutations, the most ever received in a three-month period.
The review of applications for pardons is conducted almost entirely in secret, with the government releasing scant information about those it rejects.
Ms. Rich, who had initially been reluctant to support her former husband's application for a pardon because of their bitter divorce, played a crucial role in the pardon campaign, first sending President Clinton an emotional letter on the issue and then buttonholing him at a White House dinner on Dec. 20.
