Former President Joe Biden admitted to The New York Times that he did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons affecting large groups of people, although he defended the use of the autopen.
“I made every decision,” he told the outlet in a phone call, adding that the autopen was used because “we’re talking about a whole lot of people.”
The Times noted, however, that Biden “did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people,” but instead “signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a reduction in sentence.” After such decisions were made, the Bureau of Prisons “kept providing additional information about specific inmates, resulting in small changes to the list.”
A former aide explained that staff employed the autopen rather than sending the list’s changes to Biden.
According to emails reviewed by The Times, an aide sent a draft of decisions to an assistant of Biden’s Chief of Staff, Jeffrey Zients. The chief of staff, copying those involved in the meeting, wrote in an email, “I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons.”
Biden has stood by the use of the autopen, claiming last month that he “made the decisions” regarding pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations during his presidency. Referring to the Trump administration’s review of the autopen, Biden said, “This is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) said last week that there is “no evidence” that Biden “knew anything about who was using the autopen or the process involved in authorizing the use of the autopen” and vowed to continue the investigation into the matter.
