Internal records obtained by The NY Post reveal that President Biden’s sweeping wave of pardons and commutations in the closing days of his presidency raised alarms among both West Wing and Justice Department officials, who worried about whether his directives were being carried out properly. The correspondence also raises questions about whether Biden himself was fully engaged in the decision-making process before the release of thousands of inmates was announced.
The emails show that on Jan. 11, Biden gave verbal approval to commute the sentences of prisoners convicted of crack cocaine crimes. Yet his auto-signed name wasn’t placed on three key documents listing about 2,500 individuals until early in the morning on Jan. 17.
Tensions within the administration over who should be included in the mass clemency and what adjustments to make to their terms reached a breaking point on the night of Jan. 16.
At that time, then–White House Staff Secretary Stef Feldman, who managed the use of the presidential autopen, told lawyers she required confirmation that Biden had personally approved the move before she allowed one of the largest clemency acts in U.S. history to be mechanically signed.
“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,” Feldman wrote to colleagues at 9:16 p.m.
Just six minutes later, deputy counsel Tyeesha Dixon passed Feldman’s request along to Michael Posada, chief of staff in the White House counsel’s office.
“Michael, thoughts on how to handle this?” Dixon asked, noting that Biden “doesn’t review the warrants.”
“Ok talked to Stef,” Posada responded at 10:06 p.m., explaining, “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 added, “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.”
Hours later, at 4:59 a.m., the sweeping clemency announcement was made.
The back-and-forth took place outside of Biden’s typical working hours. White House insiders had previously told reporters that Biden’s most productive window was between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Earlier, Po had informed staff that Biden directed on Jan. 11 that he wanted to “commute the sentences of those with crack-powder sentencing disparities who were determined by DOJ not to have a high likelihood of recidivism as determined by standards set by the First Step Act.”
Whether Biden himself gave explicit final approval on Jan. 16, as Feldman requested, is not established in the emails. Instead, aides relied on Po’s statement about what Biden had “intended.”
The three clemency warrants divided the thousands of inmates into groups. Many were slated for release by February, while others simply had their punishments shortened.
Later remarks by Biden suggested he may not have known only three documents were needed to authorize roughly 2,500 commutations. He told the New York Times in July that autopen was used “because there were a lot of them.”
That December, Biden signed another blanket commutation, this time for around 1,500 inmates released to home confinement during the pandemic, a process handled with a single document.
Ensuring the president’s signature truly represented his directives mattered because not every recipient was fully pardoned. Some who committed more severe crimes had their time reduced but not eliminated. Nineteen, for instance, had their sentences cut to 350 months — just under 30 years.
But there were also striking cases in which violent offenders benefited, such as Russell McIntosh, who was convicted of killing a North Carolina woman and her toddler in 1999.
The documents reviewed by The Post don’t prove Biden’s staff defied him, but they do identify officials who played roles in shaping how his orders were interpreted, while congressional and Justice Department reviews continue.
Legal analysts note that autopen documents carry full legitimacy, provided they accurately convey the president’s decisions. The emails show staff trying to create a record confirming that point.
For example, on Dec. 20, 2024, Dixon and associate counsel Jared English exchanged drafts about how to document Biden’s commutations of 37 death row inmates’ sentences to life without parole.
“Tyeesha, before Staff Sec will agree to affix P’s signature to the warrants, they need someone (probably [White House Counsel] Ed [Siskel]) to send them an email confirming that P agreed to the commutations, the number of commutations, and the date,” English wrote. “I’ve drafted an email for Ed below. can you please get confirmation from Ed today that the email can be sent to Staff sec?”
The draft message said Siskel “got POTUS’s verbal approval on the following decisions during a [Date] decisional meeting wiht PORUS [sic], Jeff Zients and Bruce Reed [any (sic) anyone else in the room]: 1. P approved the commutations of the sentence of [37] individuals on death row.”
Dixon replied, “Can you write it in first person from Ed (Stef usually requires that) and include that the commutation is to life without release?”
The commutations were then made public on Dec. 23.
The records also reveal DOJ unease about how to execute Biden’s orders, with the department only receiving the lists of affected inmates after the clemency announcement had already gone out. Officials objected to parts of the files, pointing out that some included violent criminals and that one of the three clemency warrants was so vaguely written it might not even be valid.
That warrant stated that sentences were being reduced for “offenses described to the Department of Justice,” but gave no details.
On Jan. 17, DOJ official Elysa Wan asked White House attorneys: “We do not know how to interpret ‘offenses described to the Department of Justice.’ Could you please clarify?”
The following day, Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer also raised objections.
“I think the language ‘offenses described to the Department of Justice’ in the warrant is highly problematic and in order to resolve its meaning appropriately, and consistent with the President’s intent, we will need a statement or direction from the President as to how to interpret the language,” he warned.
Weinsheimer added that, absent clarity, “[b]ecause no offenses have been described to the Department from the President, the commutations do not take effect… . I have no idea what interpretation the incoming Administration will give to the warrant, but they may find this interpretation attractive.” He pressed for “a statement of direction from the President as to the meaning of the warrant language.”
It remains uncertain whether White House staff responded before departing as the administration ended.
President Trump has regularly criticized Biden’s use of the autopen but has not moved to undo any of the documents. Some former Biden aides speculate that colleagues may have acted beyond their authority in authorizing signatures.
“‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ might be a funny movie, but the president not being in control of the White House is a horror,” a Trump White House official told The Post.
“The American public deserves to know how Joe Biden’s staff were actually in the driver’s seat.”
{Matzav.com}
