Biden Autopen Scandal Widens: Family Pardons, DOJ Objections
Biden’s final days in office may go down not just as chaotic but as one of the most brazen scandals in presidential history.
The Biden pardon scandal is growing, with new internal emails showing that even high-ranking administration officials raised alarms about the president’s reliance on an autopen to sign pardons, including for his own family, and the White House’s chaotic disregard for Justice Department warnings.
Axios reporter Alex Thompson obtained emails that reveal just how reckless the final weeks of Biden’s presidency became. What is emerging is not just a picture of confusion, but one of an 82-year-old president delegating away one of the most solemn duties of his office.
“There was a mad dash to find groups of people that he could then pardon, and then they largely didn’t run it by the Justice Department to vet them,” a person familiar with the process told Axios.
Biden granted more clemency than any president in U.S. history: a staggering 4,245 people, with 95% of those actions crammed into his final 3½ months in office. Many of them were approved using an autopen, a machine that reproduces the president’s signature without him lifting a pen.
This included pardons for five members of his own family. Emails show the decision to pardon his brother and sister, both accused of leveraging the Biden name for personal profit, was made in a meeting that included First Lady Jill Biden’s top aide, Anthony Bernal.
Late on Jan 19, an email from CoS Jeff Zients approved the use of the autopen for the members of Biden’s family.
Zients himself didn’t send the email. His asst Rosa Po, who had access to his email, sent it on his behalf. A person close to Zients said she did so at his direction. pic.twitter.com/wmxZz00V0o
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) September 6, 2025
On the night of January 19, less than 14 hours before Biden left office, Chief of Staff Jeff Zients’ email account authorized the autopen for those pardons:
“I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all the following pardons. Thanks, JZ.”
The email was not even written by Zients himself. It was sent by his aide, Rosa Po, using his account.
In Jan 2021, incoming staff secretary Jess Hertz wrote a memo to Biden, citing precedent from the Obama admin, arguing his original signature should still be used for "pardon letters."
By Jan 2025, he was not doing that including for members of his family.
Part of the memo—> pic.twitter.com/3DgMvCf95C— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) September 6, 2025
The Department of Justice was repeatedly sidelined. Ethics attorney Bradley Weinsheimer blasted Biden’s claims that his clemency actions covered “nonviolent drug offenders.” His memo flatly contradicted the president’s spin:
The next day, senior Justice Department ethics attorney Bradley Weinsheimer penned a scathing memo stating that calling the clemency recipients nonviolent was “untrue, or at least misleading.”
Weinsheimer continued: “Unfortunately and despite repeated requests and warnings, we were not afforded a reasonable opportunity to vet and provide input on those you were considering.”
Among Biden’s “nonviolent” picks was a man who pleaded guilty to murder charges after killing a woman and her 2-year-old daughter. DOJ had flagged him as “problematic,” but Biden commuted his sentence anyway.
Here is Weinsheimer’s full memo in which he criticizes Biden for granting clemency to a man who had pled guilty to murder related charges including killing a 2-year-old
"I have no idea if the president was aware of these backgrounds when making clemency decisions," he wrote. pic.twitter.com/QqfL5P8mUA
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) September 6, 2025
Even inside the West Wing, some officials balked. Staff secretary Stef Feldman demanded proof that Biden himself approved autopen use, writing:
When did we get [Biden’s] approval of this?” she asked on Jan. 7, after being asked to use the autopen for an executive order.
The fallout is still growing. The House Oversight Committee will grill Jeff Zients on September 18 over the scandal.
If pardoning your own family with an autopen, while letting violent offenders walk free against DOJ objections, is not an abuse of power worthy of impeachment, what is? Biden’s final days in office may go down not just as chaotic but as one of the most brazen scandals in presidential history.
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We can still impeach out-of-office presidents, right?
Democrat rules, right?
That “rule” only makes sense. One of the purposes of impeachment is to prevent someone not worthy of an office public trust from ever having one again. Although useless in Joe’s case, if someone is found to have committed crimes/abused his position while in office, even if out of office he can be impeached for the purpose of preventing him from attaining an office in the future. (Of course, you could also wait until he assumes an office and then impeach and remove him from that office, that’s more disruptive than necessary.)
An impeached officer can only be barred from appointed office, not elected office.
The best explanation I ever heard for the “Presidential Immunity” the founders intended was to compare a President to a Foreign Ambassador. If either do something bad while they are “In Office”, you can only kick them out.
It’s the “something bad” that is so easily interpreted different. But if the House and the Senate want them gone for not tying their shoes, they are out, but not in jail.
Do it.
He can be prosecuted for treason. He took millions in bribes from Russia and China. He told Putin that he could conquer Ukraine without interference. No doubt in exchange for millions in bribes.
I doubt there’s a remedy that doesn’t make the situation worse by setting a precedent that won’t fit in the stable system. What you’d get is an unguided change, like every bad Supreme Court decision does to the law.
Most Democrats own this. They knew but said nothing because they were winning and destroying America apace. They are no one to lecture because they were either complicit or stupid. They let it get this way and only now pretend to care about the average person. They offer no solutions besides profane rhetoric of fear. Compared to Trump’s foibles, the Democrats are actually authoritarian and engage in authoritarian behavior and tactics. Sometimes you wonder just how far they will go to incite their professional mobs. So nice that the public finally seems to see who they are and is rejecting their extremism.
Remember Sabo and Weinstein?
https://dailycaller.com/2018/01/06/artist-savages-hollywood-elite-with-we-all-knew-posters-just-in-time-for-golden-globes/
“either complicit or stupid”
Embrace the power of “and”.
Most of the time, when I read something attributed to Biden, it should be attributed to the Democrat party.
To blame Biden is like picking on the mentally handicapped. He wasn’t making the decisions. He wasn’t capable.It was the party.
So much for democracy the democrats are always harping about
Blaming Biden isn’t “like” picking on the mentally handicapped. It IS picking on the mentally handicapped. Remember, he was an idiot long before he was senile.
I predict John Roberts will find a way to say that courts can’t hear any case on pardons.
Um, they can’t. So long as the president really did authorize a pardon, and knew what he was doing, there’s nothing to have a case about.
They can hear cases on those questions.
You just said they can’t and they can.
He’s a pretend legal savant.
They can’t hear cases on pardons that the president knowingly authorized. Once someone is pardoned they’re pardoned and no court can interfere.
They can hear cases on whether someone was pardoned. If I am charged with something and claim to have been pardoned, I have to prove it. They’re not just going to believe me. If I produce a piece of paper purporting to be a pardon, the government can say it’s not a pardon, it’s a grocery list. Or it’s a pardon that I made up and signed myself. That’s not a case about a pardon, it’s a case on whether a pardon even exists. Those cases a court can hear.
Your first sentence was not to say both, they can’t and can, but “Um, they can’t.” Only afterward did you say they can. No need to go into another long-winded explanation. Your first comment, which said both, made the point. But does not change what you said, either.
Are you being thick on purpose? Anyone can go back and see what I wrote.
I wrote that courts can’t hear any case on pardons. They can’t. A pardon is not a case.
What they can hear is cases on whether a pardon exists. That’s not a case on a pardon, and thus is not what rbj1 sarcastically predicted Roberts would rule they can’t hear.
To you, because you can’t see what is going on. How many times will you repeat that they can’t and they can? Do you have a word quota? How’s that for thickness?
Sigh. They can’t hear cases on pardons. That’s what we’re talking about. rbj1 sarcastically predicted Roberts would rule they can’t hear cases on pardons, and I pointed out that indeed they can’t.
What kind of moron would think that means there are no cases at all they can hear, and they may as well go home?!
Obviously they can hear cases that are not on pardons. Including cases on whether there is a pardon. If they determine that there is one, then they can’t hear anything further about it, because there’s nothing to discuss. If they determine that there isn’t one, then it’s not a case on a pardon, and they can keep hearing it.
It’s exactly the same as when we say that prisoners of war are not entitled to habeas corpus. This is true. It’s a legal principle more than 250 years old. But that assumes the applicant is a POW. What if the government says he is and he says he isn’t? That question came up for the first time in Boumediene, and the supreme court ruled that he is entitled to a hearing to determine whether he is a POW. If he is, the case stops there, since POWs are not entitled to any relief. The government doesn’t have to explain why it’s holding him. But if he is not, then he is entitled to habeas, and now the government has to justify why it’s holding him.
And you swallowed the sarcasm and treated it as literal. And now repeat yourself over and over in more lengthy comments. Saying NOTHING new. So who is the thick one?
The use of the autopen is a red herring. There is no question that a president may use the autopen even to sign bills, which actually do require his signature, let alone pardons, which don’t. To sign bills it’s generally been accepted that he has to be in the room, but 0bama once had a bill signed by autopen when he was not only out of the room but on a different continent. But for pardons, which need no signature at all, there’s no question that an autopen is more than sufficient, provided the president authorized it. So the scandal is not about the use of the autopen, but only about whether the president said to use it.
This “warning” is irrelevant. It was not a “warning”, just one person’s opinion that the President ought to sign certain things by hand. Not because it was legally required, but just because he felt it was appropriate. Well, the White House was perfectly free to ignore his opinion and feelings. They weren’t even required to tell the President about this memo.
There is no need to run it by anyone. So long as the president authorizes it, DOJ doesn’t get a say in the matter. The only question is whether he did authorize it, and whether he knew what he was authorizing.
So? There’s nothing wrong with that. Again it comes down to one question: Did the President personally and consciously authorize it?
The question raised here is not whether the President lied. He’s allowed to lie. The question is whether he knew whom and what he was pardoning. If he said “Pardon this fellow”, then it’s probably fine even if he didn’t know everything the guy did. But if he said “Pardon all nonviolent offenders”, and they stuck this guy’s name on the list and autosigned it, and it turns out he didn’t belong on the list, then the president never pardoned him.
This is the real question, not all that business that occupies most of this post. If Biden approved it then it was fine and there was no scandal; but did he?
Again, the autopen is irrelevant. Indeed, if it turns out that he didn’t authorize it then he can’t be impeached for it! And no, pardoning your family and ignoring DOJ objections are not in themselves impeachable offenses. If that’s what he truly wanted to do, and he knew what he was doing, then he had the right. The question is whether that was so.
Presidential pardons are irrevocable, but a presidential pardon not signed by the POTUS or signed without is approval is not a presidential pardon. If a document is signed with the autopen, if there’s no record that its use was approved by the POTUS then its use was (officially) not approved.
I work in state gov. If an office director is going to be away on vacation he has to sign a memo delegating his signature authority to the deputy office director so she can sign in his stead. If the memo doesn’t exist, then it’s presumed there was no delegation, even if the director and his deputy had agreed between themselves that there was. Nothing less than a signed delegation of authority will fly with our bean counters. It’s simply not credible that similar rules do not exist in the White House.
So you’re saying he was best at something?
He has stiff competition from the Kenyan (And big Mike)
“Biden’s final days in office may go down not just as chaotic but as one of the most brazen scandals in presidential history.”
“May” go down?
Understatement of the year right there.
I can imagine many people with access to President Otto Penn’s autopen, or the email of senior leadership in the White House, we’re dancing around and singing
🎶 “Look at me, I’m the President!” 🎶 while signing bills, pardons, and executive orders.
Very sadly they will win and never be turned over
The only way anything will happen is for one of the people involved in this scandal to spill the beans. Either someone pardoned or someone given total immunity. Nothing will happen to Brandon but we could make sure that none of the people involved be let into government again.
As has already happened, the people involved have taken the fifth and no amount or Comer jumping up and down is going to change that. Without a break by one witness, this will never get resolved.
I still say grill them under oath for days upon days. One of them will crack, and start spilling the beans. Process crimes at this point would make me happy.
Lawfare is great when used as retribution, and I am all in for retribution.
Subpoena all of them including Dr Jill and Poopy Pants. They have no immunity from questioning and I don’t care if Plugs is old confused and says he doesn’t remember. This happened on his watch.
A criminal style investigation, done by experienced cops, rather than meaningless congressional committee hearings, would be a nice change.
My understanding is that there must be an auditable log that records the use of the autopen, including the document signed and the identity of the person who affixed the signature. I do not know if such a log exists.
Milhouse will expound endlessly about why this won’t happen.
1. There is no legal requirement for such a log.
2. It probably exists, but how could it help you? We don’t need to know who pushed the button, we need to know who authorized it.
the fjb auto-pen scandal is the metaphor for the his *brilliant* military exercise out of afghanistan
The two pardon issues I have not seen addressed are the legitimacy of the following hypothetical situations, both of which I think may be in play here:
– Delegation – Biden, “I approve anyone you recommend, just use the autopen.”
– Senility/Undue Influence – Dr, Jill, “Honey, you need to approve these pardons. They are good ones.”
I don’t think either of those would be valid. But we have no way of knowing that either of those are what happened. Suppose Biden tells Harris “You pick people for me to pardon, give me the list and I’ll authorize it”. That would be valid. In that scenario he consciously and knowingly pardoned everyone on the list. He doesn’t have to know who they are, or what they did, or why they should be pardoned.