U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris introduces President Joe Biden during an event about their administration’s work to regulate artificial intelligence in the East Room of the White House on October 30, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
New, recently-uncovered internal documents detail how former Democrat President Joe Biden “outsourced” the signing of important documents during his presidential term in office.
According to the Pew Research Center, Biden granted 4,245 acts of clemency as president, which is more than any other president in U.S. history.
This has prompted critics — and even some supporters of the former president — to question how he was able to thoroughly investigate the actions of these individuals and determine why he believed they merited leniency.
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In June, findings from an investigation by the conservative watchdog group The Oversight Project gained public attention. The group found that the Biden administration relied heavily on an automatic signature device, known as an autopen, for pardons — citing the former president’s cognitive decline as a factor.
The Oversight Project employs extensive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to gather documents and information from federal agencies.
Following the discovery, President Donald Trump called for the White House Counsel to begin an investigation into whether Biden’s aides “conspired to deceive the public” in regard to his mental acuity.
Despite the findings, Biden still maintains that he made all clemency decisions himself. In a statement the same month, he said: “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
Biden also claimed that his use of the autopen was a practical measure, due to the volume of clemency actions, further defending its legality. According to reports, all of the pardons signed in the last two months of his term, minus the preemptive pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, were completed with the autopen.
Additionally, Just the News also obtained a draft memorandum circulated by the White House Counsel’s office in the first month after Biden took office. Records show that it was distributed to Chief of Staff Ron Klain, Deputy Chief of Staff Jen O’Malley Dillon, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Bruce Reed, and Director of White House Oval Office Operations Annie Tomasini.
As part of the investigation, the documents revealed that many clemency questions were routed to then-Vice President — and future failed Democrat presidential candidate — Kamala Harris. White House Staff Secretary Jess Hertz had clearly specified which presidential actions required a handwritten signature and which could be processed using the autopen.
Hertz’s initial recommendations for the allocation of official tasks were to follow precedents from the Obama administration. This included the guideline that Biden personally sign pardon letters.
“Based on precedent from the Obama-Biden Administration regarding which documents generally are hand-signed by the President, our recommendation is that as a general rule, YOU personally approve and hand-sign all decisions that require Presidential action,” the memo reads.
However, a February 2024 memo released by Biden Deputy Associate Counsel Isa Qasim revealed that the former president relied more on the vice president for official documents — including clemency actions.
“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 documents also had little to no indication that Biden even attended four clemency meetings from December 2024 and January 2025, and had no record of his briefing books, including pardons, commutations or clemency in that time frame.
Biden was said to have given “verbal approval” for the clemency actions at the time, which included federal death row inmates and Biden family members.
The meetings purportedly took place on December 5th, December 11th, January 11th and January 19th. Despite retroactive emails suggesting Biden attended these, the National Archives could not produce contemporaneous (existing or occurring in the same period of time) notes from any attendees that confirmed his presence or verbal approval for any actions taken.
“We did not find specific meeting notes that clearly mention or note that the President was present,” the National Archives and Records Administration told the Trump White House Counsel’s office.
Additionally, internal emails obtained by The New York Post also revealed that Biden’s staff was unclear on whether he was consulted before the thousands of acts of clemency were granted in the last week of his tenure.
In the email chain, then-White House Staff Secretary Stef Feldman wrote to West Wing Lawyers explaining that she needed evidence Biden had been consulted, and that he gave verbal approval, before she authorized an autopen signature approving commutations for about 2,500 inmates jailed for crack cocaine offenses.
The email went out to five recipients, including then-Deputy Assistant to the President Rosa Po, referring to the president as “P.”
Shown Above: An email chain between White House officials indicated that Biden did not give final approval to the list of inmates granted clemency
“I’m going to need email from Rosa on original chain confirming P signs off on the specific documents when they are ready,” Feldman wrote.
Biden’s Deputy White House counsel Tyeesha Dixon, another recipient, immediately forwarded the message to Michael Posada, chief of staff to the White House counsel’s office.
“Michael,” Dixon wrote, “thoughts on how to handle this? He doesn’t review the warrants.”
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