President Biden’s sweeping clemency grants during his final days in office caused concern inside the West Wing and Justice Department about how to ensure his wishes were accurately implemented — and it’s unclear whether Biden himself was consulted before thousands of pardons were announced, internal emails obtained exclusively by The Post show.
The messages indicate the 46th president orally approved commutations for inmates jailed for crack cocaine offenses on Jan. 11 — but his auto-penned signature wasn’t affixed to three documents listing about 2,500 recipients until the morning of Jan. 17.
The debate over who exactly to include in the mass pardons and how to modify their sentences came to a head late on the night of Jan. 16.
Then-White House Staff Secretary Stef Feldman, a key gatekeeper of the presidential autopen, wrote to West Wing lawyers she needed evidence Biden had consented before she authorized a mechanical signature on one of the most sweeping acts of clemency in American history.
“I’m going to need email from [Deputy Assistant to the President] Rosa [Po] on original chain confirming P[resident] signs off on the specific documents when they are ready,” Feldman wrote to five other Biden aides at 9:16 p.m.
Six minutes later, deputy White House counsel Tyeesha Dixon, one of the email recipients, forwarded the message to Michael Posada, chief of staff to the White House counsel’s office.
“Michael, thoughts on how to handle this?” Dixon asked, adding in reference to the documents authorizing clemency: “He doesn’t review the warrants.”
“Ok talked to Stef,” Posada replied to Dixon at 10:06 p.m.
“We will just need something from Rosa once the documents are ready confirming that the 21 people commuted to home confinement are who the president signed off on in the document titled X, and the # individuals listed in document titled Y are those with crack powder disparities who the president intended to commute,” he wrote.
“Basically, something from Rosa making clear that the documents accurately reflect his decision. If you can give me a blurb whenever they are ready to suggest to Rosa, I can pass along.”
The mass clemency was announced hours later, at 4:59 a.m.
The exchange took place well outside of Biden’s known regular working schedule — with White House aides leaking to media outlets months earlier that the Democrat was at his best between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on any given day. --->READ MORE HERE
New documents show that President Biden was checked out of decisions on pardoning felons and commuting the sentences of death row inmates while his aides worked to make him look involved on paper.
The National Archives and Records Administration handed over Biden administration memos detailing steps taken to create a record that would make Mr. Biden look like the decision-maker for the thousands of pardons signed by autopen during his final days in office.
“Internal emails reveal Biden didn’t review thousands of pardons granted in his final days and even his own White House lawyers were scrambling for proof he approved them,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee aides posted on social media.
Other newly leaked documents show that the National Archives searched its records on the administration’s commutation of nearly every federal death sentence but could “not find a version indicating President Biden’s approval.”
The records were leaked to several news outlets amid a Trump administration investigation into Mr. Biden’s historically heavy use of the autopen.
Mike Howell, executive director of the watchdog group Oversight Project, has called on President Trump to reverse some of the pardons and block the release of felons who received reduced sentences thanks to clemency granted by the Biden autopen.
“We’ve been right all along and do not mind being proven right again. Now is the time for actual accountability. There are death row inmates with bad commutations who need to be taken care of, in addition to all the other political cronies with legally void pardons,” Mr. Howell told The Washington Times.
The Times reported last month that Mr. Biden’s associate deputy attorney general, Bradley Weinsheimer, criticized “highly problematic” language used in a single warrant, signed by the autopen, that pardoned hundreds of criminals, including a man who killed a woman and her young child to block her from testifying against him in a drug case.
Mr. Weinsheimer’s Jan. 18 email warned Biden attorneys that the clemency warrants were vague and that the lack of specificity could result in commutations, “in circumstances, including for crimes of violence, that was not intended.”
In addition to pardoning criminals, Mr. Biden’s autopen signed preemptive pardons to his family members and a slew of Democrats and anti-Trump Republican lawmakers who investigated Mr. Trump and his aides after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. Mr. Biden also preemptively pardoned his COVID-19 adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci. --->READ MORE HERE
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