Joe Biden defended his use of an autopen during a New York Times interview Sunday, saying he personally made the key decisions behind the final wave of clemency granted at the end of his term—but did not sign off on each case individually.
Biden granted clemency to over 1,500 people during his final weeks in office, a move the White House called the largest single-day act of clemency in U.S. history. Speaking to the Times, Biden said, “We’re talking about a whole lot of people,” and insisted that he “made every decision” involved in the process.
But according to the Times, Biden “did not individually approve each name” under the broad categories of pardon recipients. Instead, he approved general standards after extensive internal discussions, authorizing aides to apply those criteria when determining who qualified. Staff then used an autopen to affix Biden’s signature to the final documents, rather than repeatedly sending him updated versions for manual signature.
In what was meant to serve as Biden’s defense over the autopen controversy, the Times revealed that while Biden allegedly made the decision during a meeting, it was his Chief of Staff Jeff Zients who ultimately authorized the use of the autopen—at least in the cases of Anthony Fauci and Mark Milley.
The process has drawn scrutiny from President Trump, who in June directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the autopen’s use and whether it was connected to Biden’s mental fitness. In a memo to DOJ, Trump accused Biden’s aides of using the autopen to conceal his cognitive decline and of “wielding Article II authority in secret.”
Calling it “one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history,” Trump said the public had been “purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power.”
Sources: New York Post / The New York Times
