Joe Biden’s clemency grants were already controversial due to being authorized with an automated signature device, but a bombshell new report suggests that the cognitively impaired former president may not have even reviewed them.
During the waning days of his disastrous presidency, Biden was criticized over the thousands of pardons and commutations to members of his family, political allies and outright criminals, many of whom had been convicted of violent crimes, including murderers and rapists. Making matters worse is that an autopen was used, raising questions from many about the validity of the pardons.
Now, in a report from the New York Post citing internal emails, the question is raised as to whether the geriatric Democrat actually reviewed the thousands of pardons, with one White House lawyer being quoted as writing that “He doesn’t review the warrants.”
BOMBSHELL
New emails obtained by NYP reveal Biden didn’t even review the list of clemency recipients that his autopen signed pic.twitter.com/exAHal0t2C
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 4, 2025
“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,” the paper reported. “The debate over who exactly to include in the mass pardons and how to modify their sentences came to a head late on the night of Jan. 16.”
According to the Post, “Then-White House Staff Secretary Stef Feldman, a key gatekeeper of the presidential autopen, wrote to West Wing lawyers she needed evidence Biden had consented before she authorized a mechanical signature on one of the most sweeping acts of clemency in American history.”
“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,” she wrote to five of the outgoing president’s aides at 9:16 p.m.
“Michael, thoughts on how to handle this?” Deputy White House counsel Tyeesha Dixon who was one of the recipients asked after forwarding the email to Michael Posada who served as the chief of staff to the White House counsel’s office, referring to the documents to authorize clemency. “He doesn’t review the warrants.”
BOMBSHELL: 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.
“He doesn’t review the warrants,” said one WH lawyer. @nyposthttps://t.co/WggB7dsJ3u
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) September 4, 2025
“Ok talked to Stef,” Posada replied to Dixon at 10:06 p.m,” according to the email obtained by the paper.“ 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.”
“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,” he added.
“The mass clemency was announced hours later, at 4:59 a.m.,” the Post reported, noting that the “exchange took place well outside of Biden’s known regular working schedule.”
The paper’s report further confirms the suspicion that the dementia-addled Biden was checked out long before he left for Delaware after President Donald J. Trump’s inauguration and that his presidency was actually being run by a cabal of unelected aides and staffers.
“‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ might be a funny movie, but the president not being in control of the White House is a horror,” a White House official told the outlet. “The American public deserves to know how Joe Biden’s staff were actually in the driver’s seat.”
An unnamed former Biden staffer “familiar with the pardon process” balked at the New York Post report, insisting that the geriatric leader was fully in charge. “President Biden made the decisions,” the staffer told the paper, falling back on the so-called J6 “insurrection” to shift the focus to the current president.
“There is a concerted and willful blindness by Republicans when it comes to understanding how broad-based pardons work when they were issued by President Biden,” the person added. “That doesn’t exist when it comes to understanding the broad pardons issued under Trump for January 6 insurrectionists.”
“I made every decision,” Biden told The New York Times in a July interview, defending having his staffers use the autopen on the clemency warrants because “we’re talking about a whole lot of people.”
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