Federal prisons swung open their doors this summer and let out a parade of nearly 2,000 criminals pardoned by President Biden, despite President Trump calling the autopen pardons “worthless” and mounting evidence that Mr. Biden was barely in the decision-making loop.
Critics say Attorney General Pam Bondi should have tried to stop the early release of hundreds of convicted felons serving long sentences for murder, assault, drug trafficking and other crimes. But she didn’t.
The Justice Department decided it could not legally block sentence reductions granted by Mr. Biden, though Mr. Trump declared the thousands of last-minute pardons and commutations “void” and of “no further force or effect” because they were signed by an autopen on behalf of a president who many believe was mentally checked out.
Many legal experts say Trump’s Justice Department has no authority to backtrack on Mr. Biden’s clemency decisions. Under the Constitution, a president has the sole and ultimate authority “to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States.”
But some lawyers and lawmakers believe clemency warrants and pardons signed in the final days of Mr. Biden’s administration are legally dubious and should be blocked.
“It’s September 25, 2025, and Biden’s autopen pardons still ought to be declared null and void,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican.
The vast majority were signed by an autopen, and there are significant questions about Mr. Biden’s involvement in the decision-making behind them.
Approximately 1,900 inmates granted clemency by Mr. Biden have been released since February, but hundreds of others remain in prison on sentences shortened by Mr. Biden’s auto-penned clemency warrants.
Instead of letting the felons walk out early on their original sentences, some argue, the DOJ should keep the inmates locked up, which would force them to fight for their release in a courtroom.
“The justice department needs to exercise an act of courage here and try this,” said Kyle Brosnan, vice president and chief counsel at the watchdog group Oversight Project. “The president has made his view on these clear, and the cleanest way to actually challenge these and prove that they are invalid is to refuse to release somebody and litigate it out in a habeas petition.”
Early warnings
Mr. Biden’s own Justice Department warned during his final days in office that many on his clemency list were “highly problematic,” because they had committed murderers and other crimes far outside of the scope of the president’s intention to free only certain non-violent drug offenders.
Associate Deputy Attorney General Brad Weinsheimer wrote to Biden White House lawyers on Jan. 18, warning that clemency granted a day earlier via autopen to hundreds of felons could be legally questioned.
“I have no idea if the President was aware of these backgrounds when making clemency decisions,” he wrote.
The clemency decisions also excluded input from victims and were, in many cases, made over the objections of public officials and local and national law enforcement organizations.
White House aides and Justice Department officials did not respond to inquiries about the ongoing release of inmates granted clemency by Mr. Biden via the autopen.
Both the Trump administration and Congress are investigating the Biden administration’s use of the mechanical signature to sign pardons and clemency warrants.
In a closed-door deposition, House investigators recently questioned Mr. Biden’s former chief of staff, Jeff Zients, who gave the final go-ahead for the clemency warrants to be signed by autopen. He told lawmakers that Mr. Biden’s son Hunter, a convicted felon pardoned by his father on Dec. 1, was among those who participated in White House meetings regarding clemency in the final days of the Biden administration.
Autopen fallout
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has continued to criticize Mr. Biden over the autopen. Last week, he unveiled a framed picture of the device hung in place of Mr. Biden’s portrait in a White House walkway featuring photos of every other U.S. president.
Earlier this month, Mr. Trump told reporters Mr. Biden’s auto-penned clemency warrants should be considered illegal based on the former president’s lack of close involvement in the process.
Aides added names to the list based on parameters set by Mr. Biden, according to the former president, but he did not specifically approve each one.
“That means all those pardons that he gave, to some very bad people, very unpatriotic people, very evil people, it looks to me like those pardons are worthless,” Mr. Trump said.
The Justice Department is nonetheless upholding Biden’s clemency warrants.
Some of the worst offenders freed from prison are among the 2,500 felons whose sentences Mr. Biden commuted or reduced on Jan. 17, three days before the end of his term.
They were part of a historic number of individual pardons and commutations granted under Mr. Biden, who boasted he had far exceeded clemency provided by any of his predecessors.
Mr. Biden said in a statement that he granted clemency to non-violent drug offenders who received long sentences based on discrepancies in how crack cocaine and powdered cocaine were categorized, as well as on “outdated” sentencing enhancements for drug crimes.
In interviews after leaving office, Mr. Biden said that while he did not individually approve everyone on the list, he provided the standards for who could qualify. One of those standards, Mr. Biden said, was that clemency would be provided to non-violent drug offenders serving unfairly long sentences.
But many of the freed offenders had committed far more serious crimes.
Violent criminals
On July 16, the Bureau of Prisons freed 743 felons whose sentences were reduced by Mr. Biden in January. It was the largest release of prisoners to date.
Many of those let go were career drug dealers serving long sentences for operating drug trafficking rings involving cocaine, heroin and fentanyl, and in many cases, using guns to carry out their crimes.
Some of the men freed were serving sentences for murder and other violent crimes committed along with drug offenses. Others committed brutal stabbings in prison, including attacks on federal prison guards.
Saquawn Harris, 49, walked out of prison in July, having served a fraction of a 73-year sentence for first-degree murder while armed, two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed and various firearm and drug trafficking crimes. His projected release date was originally Feb. 11, 2070. He’s now a free man, thanks to clemency granted via autopen on Jan. 17.
According to the FBI, Harris was a member of the notorious “22nd Street Crew,” which operated in a three-block area of 22nd Street SE in the District of Columbia between April 2003 and July 2006.
Harris and five other gang members received lengthy sentences for what the FBI described as “a reign of terror” that victimized the entire community.
The crew, according to the FBI, killed four people and assaulted three others in carrying out their drug trafficking and gang turf wars.
One of their victims was an innocent bystander hit by a bullet while standing near a playground when members of the crew opened fire on “an outsider.” Their victims also included a young woman who was killed because she refused to silence her sister, who had testified as a government witness in a murder trial against one of the crew members.
Harris had been serving time for both federal and D.C. convictions. The federal charges were for drug crimes and came with a shorter sentence of 78 months. The bulk of his prison time was to be served for the violent offenses that were tried in the D.C. court system. Convictions in non-federal, D.C. courts are also eligible for presidential pardons and clemency.
Terrance Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne both walked free on July 16 after serving roughly two decades in prison. Each had been sentenced to life for drug trafficking crimes that Justice Department officials say resulted in the death of a police officer. Clemency was granted via Mr. Biden’s autopen despite “voluminous objections” from the family of the victim. Advocates for the two men say they were never found guilty of killing Waverly, Virginia, police officer Allen Gibson in 1998 but were nonetheless sentenced to life on a lesser charge of selling drugs.
Russell McIntosh was sentenced to 30 years in May of 2019 and was freed in July despite warnings from the Justice Department of his history of violent crimes, including having shot to death a woman and her toddler after she threatened to report his drug-selling operation.
Adrian Peeler walked out of a West Virginia prison on July 16. He was serving a 35-year sentence on federal drug charges. He was sprung from prison despite having never sought clemency.
Connecticut’s U.S. attorney warned the Biden Justice Department in January that Peeler was more than just a drug offender. He was convicted in state court in connection with the 1999 murder of an 8-year-old boy and his mother, who were witnesses in a separate murder case.
Peeler’s release provoked outrage among Connecticut officials and lawmakers. His consecutive sentencing on federal and state charges was meant to keep him imprisoned for several more decades.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, called the murders carried out by Peeler “vicious,” and said someone in the Biden administration “dropped the ball here to let this person get released.”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.