The New York Times attempted to perform damage control regarding former President Joe Biden and his pardons because Congress and the DOJ have been investigating the issue.
Instead, the publication made the situation worse because now I believe Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, and White House counsel Ed Siskel controlled the autopen.
Yes, that actually happened. Is anyone shocked? As Elizabeth wrote last month, a former top aide admitted to Congress that she had no idea who gave her the final authorization to use the autopen.
Let’s dive into it! I haven’t consumed enough caffeine yet, so I hope I catch everything.
Biden told the NYT that he “made every decision” and used the autopen because “we’re talking about a whole lot of people.”
Well, um, at the end of his term, Biden only granted pardons, commutations, clemency, and whatnot to only 25 people.
That’s not a lot. Granted, as someone with RA, signing three papers would cramp my wrist.
But still. 25 people and they weren’t given out at the same time:
Mr. Biden said in Thursday’s interview that he had his staff use an autopen for the warrants because he had granted clemency to so many people; the autopen was used, in all, on 25 pardon and commutation warrants from last December to January. Some of the individual warrants included large batches of names because they all fell into the same broad policy category, like reducing the sentences of nonviolent drug offenders who met standards Mr. Biden established.Mr. Trump and his congressional allies are focused in particular on trying to delegitimize Mr. Biden’s final batch of clemency actions.That set extended pre-emptive pardons to many people Mr. Trump perceives as enemies, including Gen. Mark A. Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci and members and staff of the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot. Mr. Trump has claimed on social media that the Jan. 6 committee pardons are invalid, asserting, without offering evidence, that Mr. Biden “did not know anything about them!”In the 10-minute interview, which The Times requested as part of its reporting on the investigations, Mr. Biden said he shielded those people, along with members of his family, so they would not have to run up large legal bills from politically motivated investigations by the Trump Justice Department.“Everybody knows how vindictive he is, so we knew that they’d do what they’re doing now,” Mr. Biden said, adding, “I consciously made all those decisions.”
Siskel stated, “The president makes the final decision on the final pardon and/or commutation slate.”
It sounded like the White House staff secretary wanted to follow the rules with the autopen and yet…yeah:
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 having it used 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.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.The assistants circulated the drafts to Mr. Siskel, Mr. Zients and other meeting participants before sending the final versions to Ms. Feldman, again copying the meeting participants.
Feldman received “blurbs” from people not in the room with Biden. These people relied on accounts from Zients and Siskel.
Despite this, Feldman went ahead with the autopen.
This is the part where the lede makes its grand entrance:
Mr. Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people, he and aides confirmed. Rather, after extensive discussion of different possible criteria, he signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a reduction in sentence.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.
But don’t worry! Biden reassured the NYT that “he discussed each of the high-profile individuals with aides.”
It seems to me, though, that the president has to approve every single pardon and commutation.
I gathered from the NYT piece that Zients provided the final authorization:
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.”
Why did the assistant send the final summary to Zients and ask for his approval?
I thought the president had the final say on pardons and commutations.
So, thanks, NYT! Now we have more questions about the autopen!
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