Checked out: Biden staff scrambled to make thousands of pardons look presidential
New documents show that President Biden was checked out of decisions on pardoning felons and commuting the sentences of death-row inmates while his aides worked to make him look involved on paper.
The National Archives and Records Administration handed over Biden administration memos detailing steps taken to create a record that would make Mr. Biden look like the decision-maker for the thousands of pardons signed by autopen during his final days in office.
“Internal emails reveal Biden didn’t review thousands of pardons granted in his final days and even his own White House lawyers were scrambling for proof he approved them,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee aides posted on social media.
Other newly leaked documents show the National Archives searched its records on the administration’s commutation of nearly every federal death sentence but could “not find a version indicating President Biden’s approval.”
The records were leaked to several news outlets amid a Trump administration probe into Mr. Biden’s historically heavy use of the autopen.
Mike Howell, executive director of the watchdog group Oversight Project, has called on President Trump to take action to reverse some of the pardons and to block the release of felons who received reduced sentences thanks to clemency granted by the Biden autopen.
“We’ve been right all along and do not mind being proven right again. Now is the time for actual accountability. There are death-row inmates with bad commutations who need to be taken care of, in addition to all the other political cronies with legally void pardons,” Mr. Howell told The Washington Times.
The Washington Times reported last month that Mr. Biden’s Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer criticized “highly problematic” language used in a single warrant, signed by the autopen, that pardoned hundreds of criminals, including a man who killed a woman and her young child to block her from testifying against him in a drug case.
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