Former President Joe Biden admitted in an interview on Thursday that his administration used the autopen to sign mass pardons and clemency orders because he granted clemency to “a whole lot of people.” The former president’s comments come after President Donald Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the Biden administration’s use of the autopen.
In a Thursday phone call interview with The New York Times, Biden explained that he “made every decision” regarding the clemency and pardons he granted to over 1,500 people at the end of his administration following Trump’s win in the 2024 presidential election.
“I made every single one of those,” Biden told The New York Times. The former president explained that his administration used the autopen because “we’re talking about a whole lot of people.”
During Thursday’s interview, Biden described Trump and other Republican leaders as “liars” for suggesting that Biden’s aides used the autopen to sign orders without his consent or authorization.
Asked about his decision to grant pardons to his family members, Biden said. “Everybody knows how vindictive he [Trump] is, so we knew that they’d do what they’re doing now. And my family didn’t do anything wrong.”
“And all it would do is, if they, if he went after them, would be, is run up legal bills. I just, I just know how he operates,” Biden added. “And so I made — but I consciously made all those decisions, among others.”
The Daily Caller reported that the only pardon Biden signed with his own hand in December and January was his pardon for Hunter Biden, the former president’s son.
READ MORE: Fmr. top Biden aide admits to controlling autopen
The New York Times reported that while Biden did not personally approve each of the individuals he granted clemency and pardons at the end of his administration, the former president orally communicated with his staff members and approved certain standards and criteria that were used to determine which individuals were granted clemency and pardons.
According to The New York Times, Biden’s staff members, including White House Staff Secretary, Stefanie Feldman, used the autopen to sign off on the final versions of official documents instead of having Biden sign updated versions of the documents.
In a memorandum to Bondi last month, Trump said, “In recent months, it has become increasingly apparent that former President Biden’s aides abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline and assert Article II authority.”
“This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history,” Trump added. “The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.”
