Former White House Staffers Shed Light On Marijuana Pardon...

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.

The post Former White House Staffers Shed Light On Marijuana Pardon And
Rescheduling Process Under Biden appeared first on Marijuana Moment.