Politics
Former White House Staffers Shed Light On Marijuana Pardon And Rescheduling Process Under Biden
Top White House staffers under the Biden administration have shed new light on the mass marijuana pardon and cannabis rescheduling process they helped facilitate, revealing the extent to which they were involved in broader clemency actions that are now under scrutiny by GOP leaders.
As part of a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigation into the last administration—which focused on allegations that then-President Joe Biden’s mental and physical health left key executive decisions up to his staff (and his autopen)—several staffers commented on the two rounds of pardons that were issued for people who’ve committed federal cannabis possession offenses.
Former Biden Chief of Staff Ronald Klain was asked broadly about Biden’s role in approving pardon requests, and he said “they were very rare,” but the marijuana clemency actions stood out for their scale. He also mentioned being aware of the president’s cannabis rescheduling review directive that led federal agencies to recommend moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
“There were no pardons or clemencies in 2021 at all. 2022, there were two sets, as I recall—one in the summer, which was derived from a memo the president had issued trying to reschedule marijuana off of Schedule III to Schedule I, directing the secretary of health and human services and the head of the DEA to reexamine the scheduling of marijuana, and making clear that anyone who was in prison for the mere possession of—in federal prison for the mere possession of marijuana was eligible to apply for a pardon under the memorandum.”
“I believe a few pardons were ultimately issued. But I was not involved,” Klain said in an interview with the committee. “I was involved in the preparation of that memo, but not in the subsequent followup in terms of applications to the Justice Department and how those applications came from the [Justice Department] to the president and whatnot.”
The former top staffer was referring to a novel process that was instituted after the pardons were issued where recipients could request a certification documenting the clemency action.
Asked whether he had any “concerns” with the president’s pardons, Klain said “my personal views about pardons doesn’t go to the question of the president’s competency and whatnot.”
“But I will say that, in 2022, when the president pardoned people for possession of marijuana—or authorized a pardon for people—authorized people to apply for a pardon for that, we looked at a number of these records,” he said. “We found that there were actually very few people in federal prison for mere possession, and most of the people in prison had also used a gun in conjunction with the crime.”
“Many of them were violent offenders. And so we knew that that pardon wasn’t going to cover that many people. And so I was surprised that the president pardoned many of these people who were violent offenders,” Klain said.
Anita Dunn, who served as a senior advisor for communications at the White House, also weighed in on the president’s pardons. She said the only clemency cases she was involved with were those dealing with cannabis-related offenses.
An attorney representing Dunn in the committee interview clarified that, while Dunn was privy to the decision-making process for presidential pardons, “obviously the president makes the decision,” and the staffer’s role largely came down to her participation in providing a recommendation to Biden about the proposed clemency.
Neera Tanden, who directed the Domestic Policy Council White House and served in other roles under the last administration, was also interviewed as part of the inquiry, and she brought up the cannabis pardons after being asked about whether Biden personally signed off on clemency acts presented to him.
“As staff secretary, I believe I dealt with one group of pardons, maybe two. They were pardons that dealt with people who had possession of marijuana [convictions] or had some equity issue involved.”
“And I remember a decision memo that went up to the president, and I remember getting the decision memo back,” she said. “We had a protocol for decisions for the president. It was a protocol that was established in previous administrations that I followed, which was, we had a decision memo, which had a box at the top of it. The decision memo described the decision itself… It said at the top ‘agree,’ ‘disagree’ or ‘to discuss,'” she said.
“We also had a decision card on top of that which synthesized the decision and also had that card. The president traditionally signed both of those. I believe there was a decision and a decision card for those pardons,” Tanden said. “That series of pardons happened, I believe, in something like December 2021. Now, I don’t—I just don’t recall the president signing anything directly. We just did have a decision.”
“So were you responsible, then, for when pardons or commutations came down? Were you the one who needed to get President Biden’s signature on those documents?” the interviewer asked.
“They were treated like other decisions of the president. So a decision memo came to us. We edited the decision memo. As I recall, it was a decision memo, and then it had materials for each of the pardons,” she said. “And then we had a decision card. I worked on those. I put it in the decision book. The president received a decision book every day. And I remember getting the decision card and memo back.”
Ian Sams, a former special assistant to the president, was also pressed on the pardon issue. He said that he couldn’t “recall being involved in any pardon communications.”
“I know that during my tenure I think there was a large pardon package around–or a commutation or clemency package around—nonviolent marijuana convicts, people who had been convicted of nonviolent marijuana offenses,” he said. “That happened. I was not a part of that communications process at all. So, generally speaking, I was not a part of the pardon process.”
Meanwhile, as the marijuana rescheduling proposal initiated under Biden awaits President Donald Trump’s decision, some GOP members of Congress are urging him to move forward with the reform—with one lawmaker taking a jab at Biden by joking that it’s possible the prior administration “must have not been able to find the autopen in time” to complete the cannabis reform process it initiated.
