National Archives has bad news for some of the crooks who received clemency in Biden's name

President Donald Trump declared on March 17 that "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."

"In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!" the president continued. "The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime."

Liberal fact-checkers rushed to suggest the president was wrong about the Biden pardons — however, a great deal of evidence has come out vindicating Trump's understanding that the pardons were likely unlawful.

'I made the decisions during my presidency.'

Two weeks after the Oversight Project obtained internal emails from the Justice Department indicating that there was a high-level understanding in the Biden administration that many of the commutations autopenned in the former president's name were legally flawed, Just the News received internal Biden White House memos that could similarly spell trouble for recipients.

Mike Howell — president of the Oversight Project, which first exposed the Biden White House's prolific use of the autopen earlier this year — told Blaze News, "We've been right all along, and it's nice to be right again. It's past time to start actually charging these people."

The memos, gathered as part of a Trump White House Counsel probe into Biden's use of autopen signatures for official business, shed additional light on the Biden White House's shifting approach to pardons and the former president's involvement in the process.

RELATED: 'WTF are you guys doing?' DOJ exposes 'black and white evidence' that Biden admin knew autopenned pardons were legally flawed

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A February 2021 draft memo from then-White House staff secretary Jessica Hertz — a final version of which was reportedly not referenced in the National Archives — detailed guidelines for Biden's autopen use "based on precedent from the Obama-Biden administration."

The memo, which was sent early in the Democratic administration to Biden insiders, including then-chief of staff Ron Klain, noted that congressional bills, veto messages, and pardon letters were among the documents the president should personally approve and hand-sign.

It is clear from the liberal use of autopen signatures on pardons and other consequential presidential actions by the Biden White House that this guidance did not stick.

While Biden told news outlets in June, "I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations," a draft memo circulated by Biden's White House Counsel in February 2024 suggested otherwise.

The 2024 draft memo detailed the "general pattern" followed by members of the White House Counsel's Office clemency team when securing approval for clemency, revealing that Biden "previously asked the White House Counsel to discuss the [clemency] candidates with him, although in the last round the vice president’s approval was sufficient to obtain his approval."

RELATED: Biden freed killers with a pen he didn’t even hold

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The Trump White House reportedly concluded that this particular memo indicates that Biden was "outsourcing" clemency decisions to Kamala Harris in 2024.

The Trump WHCO's probe also found very little evidence to suggest Biden actually attended four critical clemency meetings in December 2024 and January 2025 and "turned up no record of the president’s briefing books addressing pardons, commutations, or clemency at that time," Just the News reported.

The National Archives apparently has no contemporaneous staff notes confirming Biden was present at the Dec. 5, Dec. 11, Jan. 11, and Jan. 19 meetings where he was later said to have supposedly given "verbal approval" for commutations for federal death row inmates, members of the Biden family, and other unsavory characters.

The Trump White House also found a troubling indication in its review that Biden may have not been sufficiently involved in the controversial commutation of sentences for 37 federal inmates sitting on death row.

In a Dec. 10, 2024, draft memo, then-White House counsel Edward Siskel recommended that Biden grant clemency for the felons; however, the National Archives reportedly proved unable to find a final version of the memo bearing proof of Biden's approval for the commutations that were ultimately granted in his name.

Just the News indicated that the office of Joe and Jill Biden did not respond to a request for comment.

"In June 2022, the Biden White House began deploying the autopen to sign clemency warrants and executive orders in July of 2022. Autopen use skyrocketed from there," former Idaho Solicitor General Theodore Wold, a board member of the Oversight Project, told the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in June. "We found that of the 51 clemency warrants issued during the Biden presidency, over half — 32 in total — were signed with an autopen."

Wold later emphasized that the "president actually has to make the decision — that cannot be delegated to a staffer or an adviser," but there was no indication "that anyone other than staff were making these decisions."

Editor's note: Mike Howell is a contributor to Blaze News.

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