They don’t even have to get out of bed; someone in the press is already hard at work for them.
T ruly, there is no easier job in the United States than that of the Democratic spokesperson.
He doesn’t even need to get out of bed in the morning; someone in the press is already hard at work, doing his job for him entirely pro bono.
Consider, for example, the particularly embarrassing attempt last week by NBC News to downplay concerns surrounding the Biden administration’s record-breaking number of pardons and commutations, and questions about who was actually in charge when the woman operating the autopen received final approvals. While some question whether there was an unauthorized and unsupervised exercise of an exclusive and narrowly defined presidential power, the Peacock network answers by comparing the story to a member of Congress signing a PDF with an e-signature.
It’s as idiotic as it sounds. Democrats couldn’t hope for a friendly news corp.
“Rep. James Comer, R-Ky.,” begins the article authored by NBC’s Ryan Nobles and Melanie Zanona, “has been leading the probe into Joe Biden’s cognitive state during his presidency, with Republicans alleging that Biden’s occasional use of an ‘autopen’ to sign documents — a practice other presidents have done as well — demonstrated that he wasn’t fully in control or aware of what his administration was doing.”
It adds, presumably with a straight face, “But documents show that some of the letters and subpoena notices Comer has sent out in connection to his investigation have been signed using a digital signature — not written by the congressman himself.”
NBC employees were quick to hype the supposed scoop, with reporter Frank Thorp laughably referring to e-signatures as “a version of autopen.”
On MSNBC, anchor Chris Jansing teased the e-signature story, dubbing it an “unexpected new twist into the Biden investigation.”
Just so we’re all on the same page: It is NBC’s position that a representative signing a document with an e-signature is comparable to an autopen being used by (potentially unauthorized) White House staffers to exercise the extraordinary and constitutionally enumerated powers of the presidential pardon.
(Relatedly: It’s worth drawing attention here to an interesting reporting tidbit from Axios’s Alex Thompson, who was told recently by a “fairly senior person” in the Biden administration that they “could not believe” reporters actually went to bat for the administration’s obviously contrived “cheapfakes” defense against the mountain of video and photo evidence demonstrating Biden’s physical and mental deterioration.)
Meanwhile, in the world of actual journalism, news organizations much more serious than NBC are raising new questions regarding whether former President Biden exercised his presidential clemency powers himself or whether obscure administrative flunkies, who are most certainly not vested with that specific power, exercised it for him without his explicit knowledge, consent, or oversight.
The New York Times, for example, reported last week that, “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.”
The reporting adds, “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.”
Internal emails reviewed by the Times show that Biden discussed acts of clemency in private meetings with his inner circle, which included attorney Ed Siskel and White House Chief of Staff Jeffrey Zients. Members of the inner circle then dictated to their respective aides what Biden had reportedly said in those meetings. The aides wrote up what they were told and then sent their written, second-hand accounts to those who attended the meetings. A written copy of Biden’s alleged instructions was then sent to the woman who manned the autopen, staff secretary Stefanie Feldman.
White House emails also shed light on a potentially important January 2025 meeting between Biden, Siskel, and White House aides Bruce Reed, Anthony Bernal, Steve Ricchetti, and Annie Tomasini.
“The emails show that an aide to Mr. Siskel sent a draft summary of Mr. Biden’s decisions at that meeting to an assistant to Mr. Zients, copying Mr. Siskel, at 10:03 p.m.,” the Times reports. “The assistant forwarded it to Mr. Reed and Mr. Zients, asking for their approval, and then sent a final version to Ms. Feldman — copying many meeting participants and aides — at 10:28 p.m.”
The report adds, “Three minutes later, Mr. Zients hit ‘reply all’ and wrote, ‘I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons’” (emphasis my own).
Biden, for his part, maintains that he “made every decision,” adding that Republicans suggesting to the contrary are “liars.”
Among those the former president claims he approved for pardons and commutations are: Former judge Michael Conahan, who accepted bribes in return for sending minors to for-profit detention centers; Rita Crundwell, who embezzled a dazzling $53 million from the city of Dixon, Ill.; tax fraudster Paul Daugerdas; James Burkhart, a conman who targeted nursing homes; Gerald Lundergan, who was convicted in 2019 of donating illegally to his daughter’s doomed campaign to unseat Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch McConnell; activist Leonard Peltier, who murdered two FBI agents in 1977; and Adrian Peeler, who was convicted in 1999 of a double homicide of a Connecticut mother and her eight-year-old son so brutal that it inspired the state to create its own witness protection program.
Biden also granted pardons for three of his siblings and two in-laws. Of the pardons issued in a flurry during the final days of the Biden presidency, only one bears the president’s personal signature: the pardon he promised he’d never issue to his son, Hunter.
Surely, the sheer number of commutations and pardons, coupled with the intense game of telephone played by Biden White House staff, merits at least some scrutiny.
Not so if you’re in the world of charitable strategic communications!
NBC News’s Ryan Nobles claimed last week that the network had conducted an analysis and found that Comer’s signature on dozens of Oversight documents was signed with the use of a digital signature, “meaning that he did not actually sign these documents himself, similar to what he is accusing President Biden of not doing.”
First, the matter isn’t whether Biden, personally, took pen in hand to authorize his acts of clemency; the issue is whether Biden was involved at all or whether rogue staffers acted on his behalf without his explicit knowledge or consent.
Second, who actually believes NBC conducted this independent analysis? Who believes it came upon this e-signature crockery honestly? It’s 100 percent Democratic opposition research, rehashed and regurgitated in article format. Take it to the bank. If you believe NBC reporters pored over 60-plus Oversight documents one night, and then, suddenly, noticed Comer’s e-signature, you’re the mark.
So, to aspiring journalists everywhere, here’s a bit of advice: Contrary to what a great many journalists seem to believe these days, you are not, in fact, required to publish every bit of oppo provided by a Democratic operative.
You certainly don’t need to publish the stuff that makes you look like a braying jackass.
At the very least, make Democratic operatives work for it. Make them earn their supper.