The Biden administration’s Justice Department raised concerns about the Biden White House using broad categories to grant clemency to groups of people rather than identifying each inmate and listing their offenses covered by the commutation, according to an email obtained by the Oversight Project.
The revelation adds a new layer of questions around the White House’s use of the autopen and whether President Joe Biden was aware of all presidential actions taken in his name.
The information comes after Biden said last month that he didn’t approve each individual person for clemency but, rather, he approved “categories” for his staff to handle.
An email chain from Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer with Biden’s White House staffers two days before Biden left office raised concerns about this, calling the commutations “highly problematic” if the criminal offenses being pardoned were not specified in some way.
“I think the language ‘offenses described to the Department of Justice’ in the warrant is highly problematic, and in order to resolve its meaning appropriately and consistent with the president’s intent, we will need a statement or direction from the president as to how to interpret the language,” Weinsheimer wrote.
Biden’s signature was added to three warrants giving clemency to about 2,500 people.
Weinsheimer, a three-decade career DOJ lawyer, was the DOJ’s senior ethics adviser. He reportedly resigned in February after being reassigned to the new sanctuary cities working group within the DOJ, according to Reuters.
In the Jan. 18 email, he also raised alarms about characterizing all individuals receiving commutations as “non-violent.”
“[T]he White House has described those who received commutations as people convicted of non-violent drug offenses,” he wrote. “I think you should stop saying that because it is untrue or at least misleading.”
He said the DOJ identified “19 that were highly problematic.”
“Even in that number, we identified violent offenders, including those who committed acts of violence during the offense of conviction, or who otherwise have a history of violence, such that it is misleading to suggest that they are non-violent drug offenders,” he said. “16 of those 19 received grants of clemency from the president.”
In a story published in July, Biden told The New York Times: “Well, first of all, there’s categories. So, you know, they aren’t reading names off for the commutations for those who had been [on] home confinement for, during the pandemic,” Biden said. He said he didn’t “individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people.”
In the Jan. 18 email to White House staff, Weinsheimer wrote that the language for the commutations the White House provided to the DOJ was “superfluous” and could result in unintended commutations for violent crime offenders. He cited three options he called unacceptable, and one option that would be acceptable.
“Because no offenses have been described to the department from the president, the commutations do not take effect. In essence, describing offenses to the department is a condition precedent to the commutations being effective, and without a description, they do not take effect,” he wrote as one of the unacceptable options.
He went on to list the only acceptable option.
“There is yet to come clear direction from the president giving meaning to the language ‘for the offenses described to the Department of Justice.’ Ideally, this would be a list as to each inmate, listing the offenses that are covered by the commutation,” he wrote. “By far, this is the clearest and least problematic alternative.”
An X post from the Oversight Project, a government watchdog group that obtained the copy of the email, says President Donald Trump “should refuse to release inmates that received this illegal clemency and re-arrest those already released.”
Those who received clemency included “murderers, drug traffickers, and gang members,” the Oversight Project noted. That’s despite the Biden administration claiming that the commutations were for nonviolent drug offenses.
Weinsheimer flagged several people in his Jan. 18 email that had violent histories.
The Oversight Project said it was investigating which inmates received clemency under the ‘highly problematic’ warrant.
“The Trump admin should hold these people in prison and re-arrest those released while the autopen investigations continue,” the group said in a post.
The Daily Signal contacted the Office of Joe and Jill Biden for comment for this story. The office did not respond by publication time.
