Biden's Clemency Autopilot

"Three minutes later, Mr. Zients hit 'reply all' and wrote, 'I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons.'" Mr. Zients was not president.

For some Godforsaken reason, Joe Biden spoke to the New York Times about GOP allegations that he was so addled in the White House that aides used an autopen to authorize clemencies.

Yep, they used an autopen, Biden confirmed. But not because he's addled. They used the autopen to save time. "We're talking about a whole lot of people," he said. "I made every decision."

Right.

Even worse, a deep read of the Times story suggests the autopen authorization process in the Biden White House was distanced from Biden, if not at times fully divorced.

The advisers who led the Biden autopen operation are the same people who persuaded the aged president to seek a second term; who covered up his mental decline; who attacked any journalist who questioned his fitness; who cleared the 2024 Democratic field of any serious competition from younger and better candidates; and who for all these reasons are directly and unforgivably responsible for Trump's second election.

Look, I've got no problem with Biden using an autopen. Presidents have used them for decades. Thomas Jefferson used an early version to duplicate his writings.

But I've got good reasons not to trust Biden or his team to navigate a Trump smokescreen. They are, as I said, a big reason why Trump is blowing smoke again from the Oval Office.

Also, a batch of Biden White House emails reviewed by the Times — presumably after they were leaked by Biden aides who thought they would be exculpatory — reveal several layers of non-elected aides standing between the president and the clemency warrants issued in his name.

The emails reflect White House activity surrounding each of those tranches, including the dates of the meetings at which White House officials indicate Mr. Biden made decisions and the names of the senior aides in attendance.

They also show that use of the autopen was managed by Mr. Biden’s White House staff secretary, Ms. Feldman. She wanted to receive written accounts confirming Mr. Biden’s oral instructions in the meetings before using it to produce the warrants recording the clemency actions, the emails show.

The aides referred to those written accounts of meetings at which Mr. Biden delivered oral decisions as “blurbs.” The accounts were drafted by aides to the senior advisers who had participated in the key meetings — like Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, Jeffrey D. Zients, and Mr. Siskel.

Aides say this process was created to ensure that Biden had orally made decisions in meetings before Feldman activated the autopen.

The assistants who drafted the blurbs were not themselves in the room with Mr. Biden, according to the lists of meeting participants. The emails imply that Mr. Siskel and Mr. Zients relayed what Mr. Biden had said to the assistants, who then documented it.

Oh-oh. Leaving the blurb writers out of the room invites error and instills Siskel and Zeints with enormous unchecked power.

The emails also show that when the White House was preparing to announce clemency grants, communications staff drafted statements explaining the decisions. Mr. Biden had to be shown the drafts, and they could not be released until an aide said he had approved them. On at least one occasion, wording was tweaked because of what an email said was feedback from Mr. Biden.

Biden’s team wants us to conclude that a tweak-making president was fully in charge of the process. But who is this omnipotent, anonymous “aide” who declared that Biden had read and cleared them?

Even after Mr. Biden made that decision, one former aide said, the Bureau of Prisons kept providing additional information about specific inmates, resulting in small changes to the list. Rather than ask Mr. Biden to keep signing revised versions, his staff waited and then ran the final version through the autopen, which they saw as a routine procedure, the aide said.

What? While the paragraph is not written clearly, it seems to suggest that somebody other than the Biden — maybe our omnipotent anonymous aide — approved changes to the clemency list. It’s not clear whether the president was made aware of these edits made under his name.

Here’s a dramatic moment regarding Biden’s late decision to pardon Ernest W. Cromartie II, a former city councilman in Columbia City, S.C, who pleaded guilty in 2010 to a tax evasion charge and later served a year in prison.

At the Jan. 19 meeting, which took place in the Yellow Oval Room of the White House residence, Mr. Biden kept his aides until nearly 10 p.m. to talk through such decisions, according to people familiar with the matter.

The emails show that an aide to Mr. Siskel sent a draft summary of Mr. Biden’s decisions at that meeting to an assistant to Mr. Zients, copying Mr. Siskel, at 10:03 p.m. The assistant forwarded it to Mr. Reed and Mr. Zients, asking for their approval, and then sent a final version to Ms. Feldman — copying many meeting participants and aides — at 10:28 p.m.

Three minutes later, Mr. Zients hit “reply all” and wrote, “I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons.”

I just checked notes. Zients was not president at the time.

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For anybody wondering, I am a former White House and national political reporter who now works as a communications consultant in my hometown of Detroit.

My politics lean left. I voted twice for Biden. I’ve known Donald Trump for more than two decades, long enough not to be surprised by his narcissism, racism, nativism, and utter lack of knowledge of, or respect for, the institutions of democracy.

But I’m not in the tank for anybody or any party. I called them as I see them. And I don’t see this story as helpful to Biden.

Please tell me I’m wrong.

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