Former President Joe Biden said he was behind the decision to commute the sentences of more than 4,000 people and issue dozens of pardons toward the end of his term, pushing back on Republican claims that his aides used an autopen to issue the reprieves, in an interview with The New York Times.
“They’re liars. They know it,” Biden told the Times. “They’ve lied so consistently about almost everything they’re doing. The best thing they can do is try to change the focus and focus on something else. And this is a — I think that’s what this is about.”
In the final weeks of his presidency, Biden set the record for most presidential pardons and commutations after reducing the sentences of roughly 1,500 people convicted of nonviolent crimes in December, and around 2,500 additional people in January as part of an effort to help “equalize” sentencing disparities.
He also issued pre–emptive pardons to people he felt would be targeted by Trump’s administration, including members of the House panel that investigated the January 6 Capitol attack, Dr. Anthony Fauci and several members of the former president’s family, including his son Hunter Biden.
In his interview with the Times, Biden said he “made every single one” of the clemency decisions and asserted that his use of an autopen was due to the volume of commutations he granted. While he did not individually approve each name on the list, the Times reported, Biden determined the criteria that would be used to assess eligibility for the reduced sentences.
“I laid out a strategy how I want to go about these, dealing with pardons and commutations. I was — and I pulled the team in to say this is how I want to get it done generically and then specifically. And so, you know, that’s just — this is how it worked,” Biden said.
Trump and congressional Republicans have asserted that Biden’s aides used an autopen, a tool which replicates a signature, to sign presidential orders and appointments and conceal what they’ve described as Biden’s cognitive impairment, allegations that the former president previously called “ridiculous and false.”
Despite the Justice Department permitting the use of an autopen to sign legislation in its official guidelines, and an Appeals Court ruling last year that presidents don’t have to issue written or signed pardons for them to be implemented, Trump has suggested that Biden’s use of an autopen could be used to challenge the legitimacy of his executive actions, including his grants of clemency.
“The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, though he does not have the ability to formally “void” the pardons.
Last month, Trump ordered an investigation into the Biden administration’s use of an autopen, calling it “one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history.”
