() Former President Joe Biden orally granted pardons and commutations in the final months of his term, he told the New York Times.
President Donald Trump has claimed his predecessor’s staff used an autopen, a mechanical device that replicates a person’s signature, to pardon nearly 4,000 federal convicts without Biden’s authorization.
“I made every decision,” Biden said in a phone interview with the Times on Thursday.
He said his aides used an autopen to sign off on preapproved lists of convicts and prominent Trump oppositionists because “we’re talking about a whole lot of people.”
The Justice Department, Congress and the Trump White House are investigating Biden’s clemency decisions which Trump has called “void, vacant” as well as his mental acuity while in office.
The Justice Department under Democratic and Republican administrations has recognized the use of an autopen to sign legislation and issue pardons for decades.
Biden team’s pardon process using autopen
Rather than individually approve each name, Biden and his team opted to approve criteria for categorical pardons and commutations.
“The president makes the final decision on the final pardon and/or commutation slate,” Biden’s White House counsel, Ed Siskel, wrote in an email reviewed by the Times.
The outlet obtained access to dozens of emails sent between November 2024 and Jan. 20. They were turned over from the National Archives as part of ongoing investigations.
Over the course of three months, Biden created four sets of clemency actions, which were later signed by the autopen.
He’d then speak to his closest advisers and orally grant permission for the actions. Accounts of Biden’s oral decisions and confirmations were referred to as “blurbs” in emails from aides and senior advisers.
White House staff secretary Stefanie Feldman, who authorized the use of the autopen, requested written accounts of these blurbs prior to any clemency decisions.
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Then-President Biden speaks at the International African American Museum in Charleston, S.C., on Jan. 19, 2025. (Stephanie Scarbrough, Associated Press) -
Former President Joe Biden speaks from the Oval Office of the White House on Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File) -
President Joe Biden waits to speak about foreign policy at the State Department in Washington on Jan. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Assistants who weren’t in the room with Biden were in charge of drafting those accounts reportedly from information relayed by Siskel and chief of staff Jeff Zients.
The Bureau of Prisons continued to provide more information about specific inmates, sometimes leading to changes in the list. Since the alterations were made within parameters determined by Biden, an autopen was used to sign off at the end of the process rather than each time a change was made, an aide told the Times.
But for higher-level decisions, such as the preemptive pardoning of retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, Biden told the Times he discussed each with his aides.
“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 Associated Press contributed to this report.
