A White House official confirmed the pardons to the Washington Examiner, noting that the Department of Justice will post the full list on its website.

Hoover’s commutation took many by surprise. Former federal prosecutor Ron Safer, who led the prosecution of Hoover’s gang, told the Chicago Sun-Times he did not “understand why Hoover, among all of the people in federal custody, is worthy of this result.”

“In a state that spawned Al Capone, I do not believe that there’s a more notorious or prolific criminal than Larry Hoover,” he said.

The former head of the Chicago gang, Gangster Disciples, was serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and murder of a rival drug dealer when a 17-year investigation by authorities found he was still running the 30,000-member gang from prison, with operations in 35 different states. In 1997, he was found guilty of 40 crimes, including conspiracy, extortion, money laundering, and continuing a criminal enterprise. The latter conviction came after his attempted rebrand as someone who turned away from a life of crime.

Since his most recent conviction, Hoover has been serving a life sentence at the maximum-security ADX Florence prison facility in Colorado. The prison houses some of the U.S.’s worst criminals, including an al Qaeda co-founder, September 11 terrorist attack conspirators, the organizer of the 2011 Benghazi attacks, one of the Boston Marathon bombers, and Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Ted Kaczynski, better known as the “Unabomber,” and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh were housed in the facility until their deaths.

Some have suggested that Trump pardoned Hoover due to pleas from rapper Kanye West, a longtime advocate of Hoover’s liberation. He pleaded for the president to release the crime boss during an October 2018 Oval Office meeting, hailing him as a “living statue” and “an example of a man that was turning his life around.”

Trump wasn’t aware of who Hoover was at the time, asking, “What did he do?”

West emerged as a major supporter of Trump during his first term, a kinship that lasted until he brought neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes to Mar-a-Lago for dinner with the then-former president. The musician’s recent erraticism and proclamations of love for Adolf Hitler appear to have severed ties between the two.

Hoover attorney Justin Moore celebrated his client’s commutation in a text to the Chicago Sun-Times.

“Larry Hoover spent nearly three decades in solitary confinement under the harshest conditions this country has to offer,” he said. “And yet, he emerged with clarity, humility, and a commitment to peace and transformation.”

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Hoover’s son, Larry Hoover Jr., also celebrated, posting on Instagram, “Almost home!!”

However, the crime boss will not go free. While his federal sentence was commuted, he still must serve a life sentence on state charges for the murder of the rival drug dealer.