American politics still has the power to shock. Tuesday delivered one of those moments — the Oversight Project agreed with Joe Biden’s weaponized Department of Justice. That’s rarer than a blue lobster.
The issue is autopen pardons. Since March, we’ve exposed how Biden’s White House used an autopen — not the president himself — to issue thousands of pardons and commutations. The New York Times first dismissed the story as a “conspiracy theory,” only to later admit that Biden himself confirmed the scheme. Biden said he set “broad categories,” while staff picked names.
Trump has the chance to prove that the rule of law — not the autopen — governs the United States.
That delegation is flatly illegal. Only the president has the constitutional authority to grant clemency. Now we have proof that even inside Biden’s Justice Department, top officials knew it was illegal.
The smoking gun?
Ed Martin, head of the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group and the Trump administration’s pardon attorney, unearthed an email from Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer dated January 18, 2025 — the morning after Biden’s clemency spree.
On January 17, Biden’s White House blasted out commutations for roughly 2,500 federal inmates. Biden bragged in a statement, “I have now issued more individual pardons and commutations than any president in U.S. history. I am proud of my record on clemency and will continue to review additional commutations and pardons.”
But he hadn’t personally reviewed a single case.
Weinsheimer warned his colleagues that the warrants didn’t describe specific offenses, which made them legally problematic. “Because no offenses have been described to the Department from the President, the commutations do not take effect,” he wrote, as one possible outcome of the problematic pardons. Without essential fixes, Weinsheimer advised, the pardons and commutations might not hold up. He also urged the White House to stop calling the inmates “non-violent drug offenders” because “it is untrue or at least misleading.”
He was right. These weren’t harmless marijuana cases. Biden’s “non-violent” list included cop-killers, witness-killers, crack kingpins who ordered shootings, and a man who torched an informant with a butane flame. One even shot a sleeping child. These are the criminals Biden’s autopen set loose.
RELATED: Biden tried defending autopen use to the New York Times. He made it a whole lot worse.
Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Trump’s move
President Trump already declared these autopen pardons “VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT.” He has cited them repeatedly, launched investigations, and signed an executive order. The Oversight Project has now handed him the easiest test case imaginable: Biden’s own DOJ admitted the warrants were defective.
Trump should order Attorney General Pam Bondi to rearrest the released criminals and restore the full sentences of those still in custody. The legal and moral case is open-and-shut.
Why it matters
The America First coalition came to Washington on two promises: mass deportations and real accountability. Ed Martin’s work has cracked open the door to deliver on the second. The longer the administration waits, the more it risks looking like Biden’s lawlessness will stand.
Biden abused the pardon power with a pen he didn’t even hold. Trump now has the chance to prove that the rule of law — not the autopen — governs the United States.
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