Former President Joe Biden admitted to the New York Times that he did not individually sign off on each of the pardons issued via his autopen signature to batches of criminals at the end of his term, though he reportedly delineated criteria to staff.
In the final months of his term, Biden issued four large sets of pardons, three of which were categorical clemency actions covering large swaths of people, the Times noted Sunday.
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Per the outlet, Biden approved standards to give out categorical pardons to criminals in his final months in office, but staff ultimately ran a final list of names that supposedly met the criteria through the autopen, though it had been revised after Biden delineated the requirements:
Mr. Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people, he and aides confirmed. Rather, after extensive discussion of different possible criteria, he signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a reduction in sentence.
Even after Mr. Biden made that decision, one former aide said, the Bureau of Prisons kept providing additional information about specific inmates, resulting in small changes to the list. Rather than ask Mr. Biden to keep signing revised versions, his staff waited and then ran the final version through the autopen, which they saw as a routine procedure, the aide said.
Citing emails reviewed among the Biden team, the Times noted that then-White House staff secretary Stefanie Feldman was in charge of the autopen.
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The emails indicate that Biden would say what the criteria were for the batches of pardons in meetings with top advisers, including Chief of Staff Jeffrey Zients and White House counsel Ed Siskel, who would then relay Biden’s wishes to their assistants, per the report.
The assistants would reportedly craft accounts that would be reviewed by senior advisers, like Zients and Siskel, as well as others in the meetings, and make their way to Feldman, who wanted written documentation of Biden’s instructions.
In one instance, on January 19, the day before Biden left office, emails show that Zients personally gave his own sign-off on a last-minute draft summary minutes after receiving an email seeking its approval, according to the Times.
“…Mr. Zients hit ‘reply all’ and wrote, ‘I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons,’” according to the email.
The major revelations come as questions continue to mount about Biden’s cognitive acuity during his presidency, as well as the legitimacy of the pardons signed via autopen.
