00:00Last week, former President Joe Biden tried to assert that he was in charge of the big decisions made during his administration.
00:08But his comments ended up shedding light on exactly how liberally Autopin was used by his staff.
00:14Right now, many of Biden's decisions, including the mass pardons and commutations made during his final months in office,
00:21are under a lot of scrutiny due to the fact that his staff regularly used Autopin to sign his name to official documents and orders.
00:28All presidents use Autopin at one point or another, but the Biden White House's use of Autopin raises giant red flags
00:35because of ever-increasing evidence that Biden was experiencing debilitating cognitive decline while he was president.
00:42This has sparked investigations by the Department of Justice and the House Oversight Committee.
00:47Former White House staff members have admitted that Biden had bad days during his presidency,
00:52during which his schedule needed to be rearranged to avoid interacting with the public or other leaders.
00:58And there have been claims that his inner circle, dubbed the Politburo,
01:02was keeping information from Biden and making major calls with little to no input from the president.
01:07In an interview with the New York Times, Biden claimed he made every decision himself
01:12when it came to the 25 Autopin-signed pardons and commutation warrants that his White House issued.
01:18But then he admitted that he didn't explicitly approve each and every person who received clemency.
01:23His explanation was that we're talking about a whole lot of people.
01:29And indeed, the Warrens commuted the sentences of about 4,000 inmates in total.
01:34Plus, Biden handed out a few dozen full pardons, including, infamously, to his own legally compromised family members.
01:42But according to the New York Times article, the Biden White House had a process for approving the pardons and commutations
01:48that seemed to only minimally include the president.
01:52Biden would supposedly give oral approval for the terms of the warrants.
01:56Then assistants who weren't in those meetings would write up blurbs with descriptions of the president's approval,
02:02which would then be okayed by senior advisors.
02:05Then the blurbs would get sent to Biden's staff secretary, who'd use Autopin to sign off on the warrants.
02:11That's a lot of power in the hands of Biden's staff.
02:14Biden didn't seem bothered by his staff's prolific use of Autopin,
02:18but he has a stake in pushing the narrative that he was A-OK with the setup.
02:22His legacy would be further tarnished by an admission that he didn't have full control over what was going on in his White House.
02:29But his own words confirm that there's a reason to be suspicious about his office's reliance on Autopin,
02:35and that those who are looking for answers about exactly who was making decisions during the last administration are on the right track.
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