By Becket Adams
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Truly, there is no easier job in the United States than
that of the Democratic spokesperson.
He doesn’t even need to get out of bed in the morning;
someone in the press is already hard at work, doing his job for him entirely pro
bono.
Consider, for example, the particularly embarrassing
attempt last week by NBC News to downplay concerns surrounding the Biden
administration’s record-breaking number of pardons and commutations, and
questions about who was actually in charge when the woman operating the autopen
received final approvals. While some question whether there was an unauthorized
and unsupervised exercise of an exclusive and narrowly defined presidential
power, the Peacock network answers by comparing the story to a member of Congress
signing a PDF with an e-signature.
It’s as idiotic as it sounds. Democrats couldn’t hope for
a friendly news corp.
“Rep. James Comer, R-Ky.,” begins the article authored by NBC’s Ryan Nobles and
Melanie Zanona, “has been leading the probe into Joe Biden’s cognitive state
during his presidency, with Republicans alleging that Biden’s occasional use of
an ‘autopen’ to sign documents — a practice other presidents have done as well
— demonstrated that he wasn’t fully in control or aware of what his
administration was doing.”
It adds, presumably with a straight face, “But documents
show that some of the letters and subpoena notices Comer has sent out in
connection to his investigation have been signed using a digital signature —
not written by the congressman himself.”
NBC employees were quick to hype the supposed scoop, with
reporter Frank Thorp laughably referring to e-signatures as “a
version of autopen.”
On MSNBC, anchor Chris Jansing teased the e-signature
story, dubbing it an “unexpected new twist into the Biden investigation.”
Just so we’re all on the same page: It is NBC’s position
that a representative signing a document with an e-signature is comparable to
an autopen being used by (potentially unauthorized) White House staffers to
exercise the extraordinary and constitutionally enumerated powers of the
presidential pardon.
(Relatedly: It’s worth drawing attention here to an
interesting reporting tidbit from Axios’s Alex Thompson, who was told recently by a
“fairly senior person” in the Biden administration that they “could not
believe” reporters actually went to bat for the administration’s obviously
contrived “cheapfakes” defense against the mountain of video and photo
evidence demonstrating Biden’s physical and mental deterioration.)
Meanwhile, in the world of actual journalism, news
organizations much more serious than NBC are raising new questions regarding
whether former President Biden exercised his presidential clemency powers
himself or whether obscure administrative flunkies, who are most certainly not
vested with that specific power, exercised it for him without his explicit
knowledge, consent, or oversight.
The New York Times, for example, reported last week that,
“Mr. Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons
that applied to large numbers of people, he and aides confirmed. Rather, after
extensive discussion of different possible criteria, he signed off on the
standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a
reduction in sentence.”
The reporting adds, “Even after Mr. Biden made that
decision, one former aide said, the Bureau of Prisons kept providing additional
information about specific inmates, resulting in small changes to the list.
Rather than ask Mr. Biden to keep signing revised versions, his staff waited
and then ran the final version through the autopen, which they saw as a routine
procedure, the aide said.”
Internal emails reviewed by the Times show that
Biden discussed acts of clemency in private meetings with his inner circle,
which included attorney Ed Siskel and White House Chief of Staff Jeffrey
Zients. Members of the inner circle then dictated to their respective aides
what Biden had reportedly said in those meetings. The aides wrote up what they
were told and then sent their written, second-hand accounts to those who
attended the meetings. A written copy of Biden’s alleged instructions was then
sent to the woman who manned the autopen, staff secretary Stefanie Feldman.
White House emails also shed light on a potentially
important January 2025 meeting between Biden, Siskel, and White House aides
Bruce Reed, Anthony Bernal, Steve Ricchetti, and Annie Tomasini.
“The emails show that an aide to Mr. Siskel sent a draft
summary of Mr. Biden’s decisions at that meeting to an assistant to Mr. Zients,
copying Mr. Siskel, at 10:03 p.m.,” the Times reports. “The assistant
forwarded it to Mr. Reed and Mr. Zients, asking for their approval, and then
sent a final version to Ms. Feldman — copying many meeting participants and
aides — at 10:28 p.m.”
The report adds, “Three minutes later, Mr. Zients hit
‘reply all’ and wrote, ‘I approve the use of the autopen for the execution
of all of the following pardons’” (emphasis my own).
Biden, for his part, maintains that he “made every decision,” adding that Republicans suggesting to
the contrary are “liars.”
Among those the former president claims he approved for
pardons and commutations are: Former judge Michael Conahan, who accepted bribes
in return for sending minors to for-profit detention centers; Rita Crundwell,
who embezzled a dazzling $53 million from the city of Dixon, Ill.; tax
fraudster Paul Daugerdas; James Burkhart, a conman who targeted nursing homes;
Gerald Lundergan, who was convicted in 2019 of donating illegally to his
daughter’s doomed campaign to unseat Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch McConnell;
activist Leonard Peltier, who murdered two FBI agents in 1977; and Adrian
Peeler, who was convicted in 1999 of a double homicide of a Connecticut mother
and her eight-year-old son so brutal that it inspired the state to create its own
witness protection program.
Biden also granted pardons for three of his siblings and
two in-laws. Of the pardons issued in a flurry during the final days of the
Biden presidency, only one bears the president’s personal signature: the
pardon he promised he’d never issue to his son, Hunter.
Surely, the sheer number of commutations and pardons,
coupled with the intense game of telephone played by Biden White House staff,
merits at least some scrutiny.
Not so if you’re in the world of charitable strategic
communications!
NBC News’s Ryan Nobles claimed
last week that the network had conducted an analysis and found that Comer’s
signature on dozens of Oversight documents was signed with the use of a digital
signature, “meaning that he did not actually sign these documents himself,
similar to what he is accusing President Biden of not doing.”
First, the matter isn’t whether Biden, personally, took
pen in hand to authorize his acts of clemency; the issue is whether Biden was
involved at all or whether rogue staffers acted on his behalf without his
explicit knowledge or consent.
Second, who actually believes NBC conducted this
independent analysis? Who believes it came upon this e-signature crockery
honestly? It’s 100 percent Democratic opposition research, rehashed and
regurgitated in article format. Take it to the bank. If you believe NBC
reporters pored over 60-plus Oversight documents one night, and then, suddenly,
noticed Comer’s e-signature, you’re the mark.
So, to aspiring journalists everywhere, here’s a bit of
advice: Contrary to what a great many journalists seem to believe these days,
you are not, in fact, required to publish every bit of oppo provided by a
Democratic operative.
You certainly don’t need to publish the stuff that makes
you look like a braying jackass.
At the very least, make Democratic operatives work for
it. Make them earn their supper.
No comments:
Post a Comment