“I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons,” an aide for former President Joe Biden wrote in an email pardoning Dr Anthony Fauci and members of the January 6 Committee. The National Archives has turned over tens of thousands of emails from the Joe Biden Administration to the Justice Department from November 2024 to January 2025 as the autopen investigation continues.
The majority of the emails in question contain keywords like “pardon,” “clemency,” and “commutation.” Biden’s staff claims that the former president vocalized his clemency decisions before Staff Secretary Stefanie Feldman approved them via autopen. Joe Biden’s final debate with Donald Trump occurred during this timeframe, leading the DNC to remove him from the race entirely as Biden was visibly showing signs of cognitive decline. “I’ve uncovered, you know, the human mind,” Trump said as reported by the New York Times. “I was in a debate with the human mind, and I didn’t think he knew what the hell he was doing.”
Biden claimed during his first interview last Thursday that he permitted 25 high-profile pardons through the use of an autopen from December 2024 to January 2025. The use of an autopen was allegedly necessary since there were too many people to pardon and the president simply could not allocate time for such crucial decisions. At this time, the DOJ is uncertain whether Joe Biden actually knew who his staff pardoned with his signature.
“At the Jan. 19 meeting, which took place in the Yellow Oval Room of the White House residence, Mr. Biden kept his aides until nearly 10 p.m. to talk through such decisions, according to people familiar with the matter,” the NYT wrote. “The emails show that an aide to Mr. Siskel sent a draft summary of Mr. Biden’s decisions at that meeting to an assistant to Mr. Zients, copying Mr. Siskel, at 10:03 p.m. The assistant forwarded it to Mr. Reed and Mr. Zients, asking for their approval, and then sent a final version to Ms. Feldman — copying many meeting participants and aides — at 10:28 p.m,” the reporting continues. “Three minutes later, Mr. Zients hit ‘reply all’ and wrote, ‘I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons,’” the NYT concludes.
Biden pardoned or reduced the sentences for over 4,000 people, allegedly. “Mr. Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people, he and aides confirmed,” the NYT wrote. Instead, he simply provided a rough criterion for his aids to determine who qualified for a reduced sentence. This stands in contrast with Biden’s claims that he “consciously made all those decisions.” Unelected aides do not have the authority to reduce sentences or issue pre-emptive pardons. Biden’s aides have lawyered up, but there is no unified legal strategy, as Congress plans to issue additional subpoenas as the investigation continues.
The only pardon that Biden personally signed was for his son, Hunter. It is still unclear why people such as Hunter Biden and Anthony Fauci were pre-emptively pardoned if no crimes were committed. Again, only the president has the authority to determine who can be pardoned. Using an auto pen is standard procedure for presidents; however, the issues here are 1) did Joe Biden himself directly make these decisions, and 2) was Joe Biden mentally competent to understand the nature of these decisions?
