Newly revealed memos show that early in his presidency, Joe Biden’s aides believed he was obligated to personally sign official actions, including pardons, with the documents indicating Biden later delegated clemency decisions to then–Vice President Kamala Harris.
The memos were collected during a Trump White House review of Biden’s use of autopen signatures for official actions, an inquiry that has raised questions over whether the former president personally attended four late-term meetings on clemency, Just the News reported.
Those sessions addressed preemptive pardons for Biden family members as well as commutations for federal death row inmates.
The National Archives informed the Trump White House Counsel’s office that it “did not find specific meeting notes that clearly mention or note that the President was present” at any of the four clemency meetings, according to documents reviewed by Just the News.
“President Biden’s decision memo on commuting federal death row sentences is unmarked, and NARA cannot find a version indicating President Biden’s approval,” the documents added.
The Pew Research Center reported that Biden “granted more acts of clemency than any previous chief executive on record” and noted that “overall, Biden granted 4,245 acts of clemency during his four-year tenure in the White House.”
In June, President Donald Trump directed the White House Counsel’s Office to investigate whether senior administration officials had “conspired to deceive the public” about former President Joe Biden’s mental fitness and ability to carry out his duties.
Trump also ordered investigators to examine Biden’s use of the autopen for official documents and clemency actions.
A White House investigation found that an early Biden administration policy requiring “original hand signatures” on pardons was abandoned by his final year in office, when the autopen was frequently used during a wave of clemency orders.
In a June 2025 statement, amid public scrutiny of his pardons, Biden declared: “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
A February 2024 draft memo from Biden’s White House Counsel’s Office outlining the “general pattern” for approving clemency actions appears to contradict his public statements. The document indicates that in his final year, Biden increasingly relied on Vice President Harris’ judgment rather than his own in the approval process.
“Note: Given the President’s schedule, it can often take days or weeks for the President to review and approve the clemency package,” the lawyers’ memo reads. “The Chief of Staff’s office has been helpful in getting the paper in front of him for his review.”
“He previously asked the White House Counsel to discuss the candidates with him, although in the last round the Vice President’s approval was sufficient to obtain his approval,” the lawyers noted.
