Emails obtained by the New York Post reveal that top White House lawyers and Justice Department officials were left confused over President Biden’s use of an autopen to finalize thousands of clemency documents. The internal communications show that it is unclear whether Biden personally reviewed or signed off on the warrants before they were issued, raising questions about how involved the president was in the process.
The emails point to a system where several layers of unelected White House aides stood between Biden and the clemency decisions made in his name. The staff followed a routine where oral instructions from Biden—presumably delivered at meetings—were summarized by senior advisers' assistants and then used as the official justification to process the warrants. The actual operation of the autopen was reportedly handled by Biden’s staff secretary, Stef Feldman, who insisted on receiving written confirmation of Biden’s instructions before proceeding.
According to The Post, “the messages indicate the 46th president orally approved commutations for inmates jailed for crack cocaine offenses on Jan. 11 — but his auto-penned signature wasn’t affixed to three documents listing about 2,500 recipients until the morning of Jan. 17.”
Feldman reportedly wrote to five other Biden aides., “I’m going to need email from [Deputy Assistant to the President] Rosa [Po] on original chain confirming P[resident] signs off on the specific documents when they are ready.”
“Six minutes later, deputy White House counsel Tyeesha Dixon, one of the email recipients, forwarded the message to Michael Posada, chief of staff to the White House counsel’s office. ‘Michael, thoughts on how to handle this?’ Dixon asked, adding in reference to the documents authorizing clemency: ‘He doesn’t review the warrants.’”
“We will just need something from Rosa once the documents are ready confirming that the 21 people commuted to home confinement are who the president signed off on in the document titled X, and the # individuals listed in document titled Y are those with crack powder disparities who the president intended to commute,” he wrote. “Basically, something from Rosa making clear that the documents accurately reflect his decision. If you can give me a blurb whenever they are ready to suggest to Rosa, I can pass along.”
The Post notes that the interaction occurred outside of President Biden’s usual working hours, as White House staff had previously told reporters that he was “at his best” between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Justice Department officials, according to the documents, were unsure what exactly the clemency warrants were authorizing. The DOJ’s internal correspondence expressed concerns that some warrants failed to specify which offenses were being commuted, complicating their legal status and leaving officials uncertain about how to proceed. Some lawyers warned that these ambiguously worded clemencies could be legally problematic—not only because of the process but also because it was unclear whether Biden personally reviewed or signed off on each one.
Although Biden publicly stated that he made every decision, telling the media that using the autopen was a time-saving measure, the uncovered communication suggests he may have been distant from the day-to-day execution of the process. The details revealed by the emails continue to raise questions in Congress and among the public about who ultimately authored and approved the mass pardons and commutations.
One Trump White House official reportedly told The Post, “‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ might be a funny movie, but the president not being in control of the White House is a horror,” adding, “the American public deserves to know how Joe Biden’s staff were actually in the driver’s seat.”