WASHINGTON, July 22 -- For the tens of thousands of people who filed clemency petitions to the Trump administration expecting the pardon wave the president had promised, the answer has mostly arrived: no. Over the course of his second term so far, Trump granted fewer than 20 pardons and commutations from a pool of approximately 6,000 applications submitted to the Justice Department, according to reporting published Monday by The New York Times.

The July 4 holiday had become the focal point for advocacy groups, defense attorneys, and the families of federal prisoners who expected a mass pardon announcement tied to the patriotic occasion. Trump delivered his July 4 address at Mount Rushmore as a sharp political speech, but the clemency ann...