In a startling confession, former President Biden admitted to the New York Times that he did not approve many of the controversial pardons that he nominally signed at the end of his term.
Biden defended his administration's frequent use of an autopen as perfectly "legal," and insisted that he made "every decision." But he also conceded that he delegated the details of the pardon process to his staff because there were too many to sign.
"We’re talking about a whole lot of people," he said.
Biden's frequent use of the autopen has fueled doubts about his authority over the White House and the legitimacy of the actions he took as president, especially the controversial pardon spree of his final days in power.
Biden granted clemency to 4,000 inmates, including nearly every federal prisoner on death row, and he gave pre-emptive pardons to members of his own family.
According to the Times, Biden "did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people, he and aides confirmed."
Biden only approved the basic criteria that were used for three sets of mass pardons, the Times reported. A fourth set of pardons involved high-profile Trump critics like Mark Milley and Anthony Fauci, and Biden insisted he discussed their cases individually.
“We know how vindictive Trump is, and I’ve no doubt they would have gone after Mark for no good reason,” Biden said.
“The general, you know. So they may read off his name — what’d I want? I told them I wanted to make sure he had a pardon because I knew exactly what Trump would do — without any merit, I might add.”
The White House used a multi-step process to record the proof of Biden's involvement.
Senior advisers like chief of staff Jeff Zients would relay Biden's decisions to assistants to be written down. The assistants, who were not present for Biden's meetings, would then send their notes back to Biden's advisers for approval before sending them off to staff secretary Stefanie Feldman, who had the autopen.
If revisions were made to the pardon list, staff would run the final versions through the autopen without asking Biden to sign again.
On the final night of his presidency, Biden made the decision to pre-emptively pardon his family members, but Zients had the final sign-off.
In an e-mail at 10:31 p.m. on January 19, he wrote, "I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons."
