Staffer said Biden 'doesn't review the warrants' in email about autopen use for pardons, clemencies

Emails from Department of Justice officials and White House lawyers during the Biden administration reveal that Biden may not have reviewed the clemency warrants of thousands of people the former president authorized clemency for. The emails add to the scandal that has surrounded the use of the autopen by Biden staffers while he was in office in declining health.

Internal Biden administration emails obtained by the New York Post revealed exchanges between DOJ officials and White House lawyers who were befuddled and concerned by Biden's sweeping acts of clemency in his final weeks in office and were unsure about how to implement Biden's wishes. The Post reported that from the emails, "it’s unclear whether Biden himself was consulted before thousands of pardons were announced."

The email exchanges between several staffers indicate that Biden orally approved the commutations of inmates locked up for crack cocaine offenses on January 11, 2025. However, the autopen signature on the acts of clemency was not signed until the morning of January 17. Debate over who should be included in the mass pardon came to a head on the night of January 16.

White House Staff Secretary Stef Feldman, who is something of a gatekeeper for the autopen, wrote to lawyers in the White House that she needed evidence that Biden had given the go-ahead for the mass act of clemency. “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 several Biden aides at 9:16 pm.

After six minutes, White House counsel Tyeesha Dixon sent the message to the chief of staff to the White House counsel's office, Michael Posada. “Michael, thoughts on how to handle this?” Dixon wrote, then shockingly added in regards to the clemency documents, “He doesn’t review the warrants.”

Posada replied to Dixon at 10:06 pm, “Ok talked to Stef."

“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 added. “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 act of clemency was later announced at 4:59 am. Biden's normal work schedule was between 10 am and 4 pm on any given day, according to reports at the time. Posada had also said in a previous email that on January 11, Biden said he wanted to “commute the sentences of those with crack-powder sentencing disparities who were determined by DOJ not to have a high likelihood of recidivism as determined by standards set by the First Step Act.”

It is not clear if Biden gave the green light to the acts of clemency that night on January 16, however, the exchange suggests that the Biden aides instead took action on what Posada said Biden "intended" to do.

The three documents signed early the next morning were for around 2,500 commutations. Biden has since said that the autopen was used to sign the clemency documents because there were "a lot of them," but there were only three documents that day that were signed with the autopen.

In December, a similar act of clemency was granted to 1,500 people who were released to house arrest during the Covid-19 pandemic. Although many of the violent criminals only had their sentences shortened and not completely set aside, there were some criminals with violent records who still were able to get near-immediate commutations. One example was Russell McIntosh, 51, who murdered a woman in 1999 when she threatened to report him to the police.

Other emails showed DOJ officials were concerned about how to carry out Biden's acts of clemency. The DOJ did not receive the list of 2,500 names until after the commutations were announced. Some of the commutation recipients were violent criminals, which some officials took issue with in the email exchanges.

Then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer said to Dixon and White House associate counsel DeAnna Evans over an email exchange, “I think the language ‘offenses described to the Department of Justice’ in the warrant is highly problematic and in order to resolve its meaning appropriately, and consistent with the President’s intent, we will need a statement or direction from the President as to how to interpret the language."

Weinsheimer added in the email that a result of the vagueness could be “Because no offenses have been described to the Department from the President, the commutations do not take effect… . I have no idea what interpretation the incoming Administration will give to the warrant, but they may find this interpretation attractive.”

He then requested “a statement of direction from the President as to the meaning of the warrant language." However, it is not clear if the Biden White House ever replied.

In response to the article from the Post, a former Biden staffer insisted that "President Biden made the decisions."

“There is a concerted and willful blindness by Republicans when it comes to understanding how broad-based pardons work when they were issued by President Biden,” the former staffer added, “that doesn’t exist when it comes to understanding the broad pardons issued under Trump for January 6 insurrectionists.”