Biden White House Commuted Death-Row Inmates’ Sentences Without First Hearing from Victims, Emails Show

The Biden White House approved commutations for dozens of violent death-row inmates without first consulting victims and their families, according to internal communications which suggest that the sweeping clemency decisions made in the final days of Biden’s presidency were the result of a chaotic, insular White House process.

In his final weeks in office, Biden announced some of the most far-reaching acts of clemency in American history, issuing preemptive pardons for five members of his family, commuting 37 federal death-row inmates’ capital sentences to life imprisonment, and issuing commutations for thousands of inmates convicted of drug-related offenses, some of them violent.

While these monumental decisions were being made, Biden’s own Department of Justice and the families of the affected victims appear to have been kept in the dark.

The newly obtained email correspondence sheds light on a key period of the Biden presidency that is now under investigation by the Trump White House and congressional Republicans.

In the final weeks of Biden’s presidency, Justice Department officials were emailing their counterparts in the White House Counsel’s Office about their efforts to get in touch with death-row inmates’ victims’ family members, only to learn that Biden had already decided to commute the inmates’ sentences.

In the end, Biden commuted 37 of 40 federal death-row inmates’ capital sentences even though many victims opposed the idea of clemency. In other cases, the Justice Department’s efforts to get in touch with the victims were unsuccessful or stymied by the White House Counsel’s Office, internal documents show.

Biden verbally approved the commutations of 37 capital sentences during a December 11 meeting with White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Bruce Reed, and White House Counsel Ed Siskel, according to an email sent by Senior Adviser to the Chief of Staff Rosa Po to Staff Secretary Stefanie Feldman and other White House aides on December 21.

But six days after Biden had approved the commutations, Justice Department pardon attorney Elizabeth Oyer penned a memo to the White House Counsel’s Office and Office of the Deputy Attorney General informing individuals on Biden’s clemency team about the Justice Department’s attempts to get in touch with death row inmates’ victims to get a sense of how they’d feel about commutations.

“There are 40 individuals on federal death row. Our office has received applications seeking commutation of sentence in 28 of those cases,” Oyer wrote in her December 17 memo, sent after Biden’s decision had already been made. “In each instance, we have endeavored to solicit the views of the victims regarding the prospect of commuting the applicant’s death sentence.”

Days after Biden approved the commutations, most of the affected victims and their families were telling the Department of Justice they didn’t want to see the president grant leniency to the offender in their case.

“Out of the total of 40 cases, we have the victims’ views in 22 cases. Those views break down as follows,” Oyer continued.

“In four cases, the victims support commutation,” she wrote (bold in original). “In seven cases, the victims have varying views, with some supporting and some opposing commutation; In 11 cases, the victims oppose commutation.”

And many of the victims and their families never heard from the Justice Department at all: The memo reveals that officials were unable to get in contact with victims in 18 of the 40 cases that Biden and his top aides had already made commutation decisions about.

“Where information is unavailable, the reason varies from case to case,” Oyer continued. “In most instances, we lack information about the victims’ views because neither the death-sentenced individual nor any codefendant has submitted a clemency application to our office (this is true of 10 men on the federal death row).”

“At the request of WHCO, we have not affirmatively reached out to U.S. Attorneys to seek victims’ views in the instances in which the inmate has not filed a clemency petition,” she wrote.

‘Non-Violent’ Offenders

The death-row cases were not the only instance in which there existed widespread confusion within the Justice Department about how the White House was vetting, approving, and characterizing clemency cases to the public. According to then–Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer, Biden issued commutations for many inmates convicted for violent drug-related offenses without first seeking or reviewing victim input.

“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 in an email to administration officials on January 18, the details of which were first reported by the New York Post and confirmed by National Review.

In his scathing email, Weinsheimer expressed extreme frustration that the president had used the term “nonviolent” to describe the commutations for individuals convicted in drug-related offenses. He cited the case of Russell McIntosh, who killed a woman and her two-year-old child, among other examples of cases where the term “non-violent” was inaccurate.

“We also note that there was no consideration given to victim input in these cases involving violent crimes,” Weinsheimer wrote. “In the cases of Terrence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne, who were included in the clemency grants, the Department has received voluminous objections to clemency from the family of the victim, public officials, and local and national law enforcement organizations. Richardson and Claiborne were sentenced to life imprisonment for drug trafficking offenses during which a police officer was killed.” 

“I have no idea if the President was aware of these backgrounds when making clemency decisions, the Department was largely excluded from the process, which we otherwise opposed,” Weinsheimer continued.

Other internal correspondence between White House aides from the final months of Biden’s presidency raise new questions about how much the president knew about the individual commutations he approved before leaving office.

As the New York Post has also previously reported, internal emails from the final days of Biden’s presidency shed new light on Biden’s use of categorical pardon power. “Michael, thoughts on how to handle this? He doesn’t review the warrants,” Deputy White House Counsel Tyeesha Dixon wrote in a January 16 email to other White House aides.

And Justice Department officials remained in the dark about which 2,490 inmates were receiving commutations for drug-related offense until shortly before the White House made the list public on January 17.

Email correspondence shows that Oyer, the Justice Department’s pardon attorney, expressed extreme frustration to her White House Counsel’s Office counterparts that the Justice Department had not received an advance clemency list the morning they were set to be announced.

“Hello, following up on timing,” Oyer wrote in an email to Office of the White House Counsel attorney DeAnna Evans and other administration officials at 11:58 a.m. on January 17, hours after she requested a full clemency list at 6:16 a.m. earlier that morning. “We are fielding numerous inquiries from government officials and the public. Anxiety is especially high among applicants and their families. I hope you can share this soon.”

Frustrated by the White House Counsel’s Office’s non-compliance, Oyer sent an impatient follow-up email at 1:39 p.m.: “I know I sound like a broken record, but our incoming is nonstop, and folks are becoming increasingly upset and concerned, including congressional staff, US Courts/Probation, and stakeholder orgs. I have no explanation to offer them as to why a list is not available. Would greatly appreciate any update.”

The White House did not respond until shortly before the list became public. “Please see the attached chart. It should go live on our site momentarily,” Evans, associate counsel for the Office of the White House Counsel, replied at 3:24 p.m.