Newly released internal emails show senior Justice Department officials repeatedly warned the White House that President Joe Biden’s January 2025 mass-clemency order risked freeing violent offenders and could prove legally flawed because it was executed with an autopen. Associate Deputy Attorney General Brad Weinsheimer told presidential lawyers on Jan. 18 that language in the warrant covering nearly 2,500 inmates was “highly problematic,” noting the list included people convicted of violent crimes and that the description of the group as “non-violent drug offenders” was misleading. According to the correspondence, DOJ lawyers were given minutes to review the final documents and were barred from vetting individual cases, despite what Weinsheimer described as “voluminous objections” from victims’ families. The emails also raise questions over whether Biden personally reviewed or approved the final roster before aides used an autopen to affix his signature. The disclosures, obtained by the conservative Oversight Project and first reported by several outlets on Aug. 19, add to Republican criticism of the outgoing administration’s clemency practices and could complicate efforts to implement the pardons. The White House has not commented publicly on the warnings.