There are new, critical questions about some of those Joe Biden pardons, based on internal emails and memos that the media reviewed.
The New York Post raised big questions about the pardons, referencing Biden administration internal emails.
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.
Let's stop for a moment and ask why are there alleged "gatekeepers" for the autopen?
Feldman then wrote an email at 9:16 p.m. to other aides saying she was going to need "email from [Deputy Assistant to the President] Rosa [Po] on original chain" confirming that Biden "signs off on the specific documents when they are ready."
In the email exchange, 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 asked, “Michael, thoughts on how to handle this?” and noted as to the documents authorizing clemency: “He doesn’t review the warrants.”
So I have to ask: Why is he not reviewing them?
Posada similarly said they needed something from Po.
“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 Post noted this was outside of Biden's general hours.
It was unclear if they received anything new.
Po had indicated in a prior email that Biden told multiple officials on Jan. 11 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’s unclear whether Biden actually gave the final go-ahead as Feldman requested Jan. 16, but the emails suggest that aides instead incorporated Po’s attestation of what he “intended” to do.
The Post also raised questions about whether Biden understood what was going on.
The ex-president’s public remarks since then indicate he was not aware that only three documents were required for the roughly 2,500 commutations.
He told the New York Times in July that autopen was used to sign clemency warrants “because there were a lot of them.”
Just the News found different questions in their review of internal memos, including about four meetings to discuss clemency decisions.
The National Archives and Records Administration told the Trump White House Counsel's office that "we did not find specific meeting notes that clearly mention or note that the President was present" for any of the four meetings, according to the documents reviewed by Just the News.
"President Biden’s decision memo on commuting federal death row sentences is unmarked, and NARA cannot find a version indicating President Biden’s approval," the documents added.
That would seem rather important. Just the News says there were "retroactive emails" indicating Biden's presence, but not contemporaneous notes. So was he there, and even if he was, did he actually mark his approval?
There were also questions about the Death Row commutations.
The White House obtained a December 10, 2024, draft memorandum from White House Counsel Edward Siskel recommending the president “use YOUR clemency authority to commute – to life imprisonment without the possibility of probation – the sentences of the 37 people the current Attorney General would not authorize for death today based on current charging standards,” the documents show.
At the top of the memo there were listed four options for Biden to choose: Approve, Approve as Amended, Reject, or Discuss. However, the National Archives could not find any final version of the memo indicating the president’s approval of the 37 communtations, the White House said. Yet, all 37 were signed.
Just the News also covered a February 2024 memo that revealed he was relying on Kamala Harris.
“Note: Given the President’s schedule, it can often take days or weeks for the President to review and approve the clemency package,” the lawyers’ memo reads. “The Chief of Staff’s office has been helpful in getting the paper in front of him for his review.”
“He previously asked the White House Counsel to discuss the candidates with him, although in the last round the Vice President’s approval was sufficient to obtain his approval,” the lawyers noted.
The Trump White House concluded that this memo shows the former president was effectively “outsourcing” clemency decisions to Harris during that final year.
Did he review the material or not? If he's not reviewing the material and he "approves" it because she approves it, then that sounds problematic when he's the one who's supposed to be making the determination.
Biden claimed in July that he personally approved everything: “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false."
That's not stopping the serious questions about approval, not to mention about the problematic layers and the hoops involved in the process.
The Department of Justice and the House Oversight Committee are also investigating the scandal, and we should be hearing more from them as they wend their way through all this.
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