Newly obtained internal Justice Department emails are pulling back the curtain on former President Joe Biden’s massive, last-minute clemency blitz — revealing confusion inside the DOJ and an admission that many of the cases were never vetted through the department’s traditional pardon office.

The records show Justice Department officials scrambling to determine exactly what some of Biden’s commutations covered, while also dealing with an erroneous notice involving the pardon of the president’s own son, Hunter Biden.

The emails were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by government watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust and provided to Fox News Digital.

And one admission buried in the correspondence could raise serious new questions about how Biden’s extraordinary wave of clemency decisions was handled.

“Many of the cases that were granted commutation on January 17 were not vetted through our office,” Deputy Pardon Attorney Kira Gillespie wrote.

That office — the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney — traditionally plays a central advisory and review role in presidential clemency cases.

Yet Biden was issuing clemency on a massive scale as his presidency came to an end.

Biden Commutes Nearly 2,500 Sentences At Once

On Jan. 17, 2025, Biden announced that he was commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses.

Federal records ultimately showed the action covered 2,490 people.

Biden said the sweeping move was aimed primarily at prisoners serving sentences significantly longer than they might receive under modern federal sentencing laws, including people affected by the old sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses.

But behind the scenes, DOJ officials apparently didn’t have all the answers.

Internal correspondence shows department personnel were soon trying to determine precisely which sentences Biden had actually commuted.

One case involved Christopher Damon Spencer.

Spencer’s name appeared on Biden’s clemency list in connection with a 2003 criminal case.

But he also had a separate 2011 case carrying a 235-month federal prison sentence.

Prosecutors wanted to know whether Biden’s clemency action applied to that sentence too.

Deputy Pardon Attorney Gillespie responded that applying the commutation to both cases appeared to be the “most sensible reading” of Biden’s action.

Then came the stunning admission.

“Many of the cases that were granted commutation on January 17 were not vetted through our office,” Gillespie wrote.

According to the records, she also indicated that the information available had not undergone the level of review her office would ordinarily seek.

‘Grand Canyon Gap’

Critics seized on the emails as evidence that Biden’s final clemency operation looked considerably different behind closed doors than it did publicly.

“The process didn’t match the public sales pitch,” former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares told Fox News Digital.

“There is a Grand Canyon gap between the public description and the internal reality,” Miyares said.

Protect the Public’s Trust communications director Alexa Moutevelis was even more pointed.

“This paints a troubling picture of a pardon process driven by politics and haste rather than the careful deliberation such extraordinary acts of executive clemency demand,” Moutevelis said.

And according to Moutevelis, the confusion wasn’t limited to obscure cases buried among thousands of names.

It reached all the way to Hunter Biden.

“The Justice Department pardon office’s own emails show the final Biden auto-pen blitz was so clumsy and rushed that the chaos extended even to the most high-profile and controversial of all: his own son, Hunter,” Moutevelis told Fox.

The records cited in the report include officials correcting an erroneous notice connected to Hunter Biden’s pardon.

Autopen Controversy Adds Another Layer

The newly released emails arrive amid a separate controversy surrounding the Biden White House’s use of an autopen.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of some of Biden’s final pardons, arguing that an autopen was used and questioning whether Biden personally authorized the actions.

Among Biden’s final acts were pardons for members of the January 6 select committee, including former Rep. Liz Cheney.

Trump has alleged those pardons may have been signed using an autopen without Biden’s knowledge.

Those claims remain disputed, and the records described here do not establish that Biden was unaware of the pardons.

But another Trump administration official has made an even more explosive allegation.

Trump AI advisor David Sacks previously claimed that Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren was behind the Biden administration’s use of the autopen.

“Elizabeth Warren controlled the autopen during that administration,” said the Trump advisor, adding that the Massachusetts senator has a “pathological hatred of the crypto community” and wanted to “drive this community offshore.”

Sacks did not provide evidence in the cited interview establishing that Warren actually controlled Biden’s autopen.

Emails Raise New Questions About Biden’s Final Days

Presidents possess extraordinarily broad constitutional authority to grant federal pardons and commutations.

The controversy here is instead about how Biden’s unprecedented wave of clemency decisions was processed and reviewed inside the administration.

And on that question, the internal emails provide a striking glimpse behind the curtain.

DOJ personnel were seeking clarification about individual sentences.

An erroneous notice involving Hunter Biden had to be corrected.

And a senior official inside the Pardon Attorney’s office acknowledged that many of the Jan. 17 commutations had never been vetted through her office at all.

That doesn’t establish that the clemency grants themselves were invalid.

A Democratic state lawmaker’s reelection campaign has come crashing down after a bizarre alcohol-fueled hotel scandal involving reports of a naked man running through the halls and knocking on guests’ doors.

And the political fallout didn’t stop there.

New Mexico Democratic state Rep. Joseph Hernandez abruptly ended his reelection campaign following the explosive incident at a Chicago hotel — only for Democrats to suffer another setback when their attempt to replace him on the ballot was blocked by the state’s highest court.

Hernandez, a first-term lawmaker representing House District 4, announced that he was withdrawing from the November election and would instead focus on his health and family.

He plans, however, to remain in office through the end of his current term.

The decision followed days of scrutiny over a heavily redacted Chicago Police Department report detailing a disturbance at the Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza at Wolf Point, where lawmakers were staying while attending a National Conference of State Legislatures gathering.

What allegedly happened inside that hotel quickly became a political nightmare.

Police Called Over Naked Man Running Through Hotel

According to reporting based on the police report and witness accounts, officers were summoned during the early morning hours of July 29 after receiving complaints about a naked man running along the hotel’s 17th floor and banging or knocking on guests’ doors.

News reports subsequently identified the man described in the report as Hernandez.

Hernandez does not appear to have been criminally charged over the incident.

But the allegations didn’t end there.

One witness told the Albuquerque Journal that Hernandez allegedly pushed him near an elevator before police arrived.

Reporting also described a separate incident during the same trip in which Hernandez allegedly passed out on a hotel lobby couch after drinking. Police were reportedly not involved in that encounter.

Initially, Hernandez offered a considerably more vague account.

In a statement released through New Mexico House Democrats, he described what happened merely as a “negative interaction” involving hotel security and Chicago police.

Then the police report became public.

And the story changed dramatically.

Democrat Admits Alcohol Played A Role

As more details emerged, Hernandez issued a broader apology acknowledging that alcohol had played a role in his behavior.

“I want to sincerely apologize to my family and my community for my behavior during a recent stay in Chicago,” Hernandez said in his subsequent statement.

He acknowledged his behavior fell short of the responsibilities of his office and said he was “seeking professional help to address my challenges with alcohol.”

Hernandez characterized the incident as a lapse in judgment and said he accepted responsibility.

Then, two days later, he pulled the plug on his reelection campaign.

“After careful consideration, I have made the difficult decision to withdraw my candidacy from the upcoming general election,” Hernandez said.

“At this time, I believe the best decision for me and those I love is to focus on my health and my family, while continuing to serve the community that entrusted me with this office through the remainder of my term.”

But his withdrawal created an immediate political mess for Democrats.

Republicans Demand He Resign Completely

Hernandez has represented District 4 since January 2025 and serves on the New Mexico House Appropriations and Finance Committee as well as the Transportation, Public Works and Capital Improvements Committee.

Republican House Minority Leader Gail Armstrong argued that simply abandoning his reelection campaign wasn’t enough.

She called on Hernandez to resign his legislative seat entirely.

Democratic House Speaker Javier Martínez also expressed disappointment over Hernandez’s conduct, while saying the lawmaker should receive the help he needs to address his problems and support his family and community.

But Democrats now had another urgent problem:

Who would replace Hernandez on the ballot?

The answer quickly produced yet another setback.

Democrats Try To Replace Him — Supreme Court Says No

The Democratic Party of San Juan County selected former state Rep. Anthony Allison, who held the District 4 seat before Hernandez, as its replacement nominee.

There was just one problem.

State election officials determined Democrats had acted too late to substitute Allison under New Mexico law.

The fight eventually went all the way to the New Mexico Supreme Court.

Democrats lost.

In a 4-1 ruling on Sept. 3, the court determined that Allison could not be placed on the November ballot.

That means an already embarrassing personal scandal has now created a potentially serious electoral headache for the party.

What began with reports of a bizarre late-night disturbance inside a Chicago hotel ultimately ended with a Democratic incumbent abandoning his reelection bid — and his party being blocked from simply swapping in its preferred replacement.

Hernandez says he’ll now focus on his health and family while finishing his term.

But for New Mexico Democrats, the political damage from one wild night in Chicago may last considerably longer.

The Trump administration says it has uncovered a staggering fraud problem buried inside Obamacare — and the numbers could reignite the battle over the controversial healthcare law.

According to administration officials, roughly $10 billion in taxpayer money was improperly paid out between 2021 and 2024 as enrollment safeguards were weakened under former President Joe Biden.

But the alleged scale of the problem goes far beyond the dollar figure.

A Department of Health and Human Services report says officials have already removed nearly three million fraudulent or improper Obamacare enrollments — while another 2.6 million questionable enrollments remain.

And more than one million of those remaining enrollments allegedly don’t even have a Social Security number attached to them.

The administration says what it uncovered includes improper subsidies, questionable eligibility and so-called “phantom enrollments” — cases in which insurance brokers allegedly signed people up for Obamacare plans without their knowledge.

Obamacare Enrollment Exploded Under Biden

The report traces the problem back to changes implemented during the Biden administration that expanded opportunities to enroll while relaxing certain income verification and eligibility safeguards.

The numbers surged.

At the beginning of Biden’s presidency, Affordable Care Act exchanges covered approximately 10 million people.

By 2024, that figure had ballooned to roughly 22 million.

Federal investigators now believe millions of those enrollments were improper, fraudulent or, in some cases, allegedly created without the knowledge of the people supposedly receiving the coverage.

“By our estimate, improper, phantom, and fraudulent enrollment peaked at 5.6 million people in 2025,” the report states.

“We estimate 2.6 million improper and phantom enrollments remain, including over 1 million enrollments without a Social Security number.”

Those figures are now putting a massive spotlight on what happened as Obamacare enrollment soared.

‘Phantom Enrollments’ Put Brokers Under Scrutiny

The report describes multiple ways the system was allegedly exploited.

Some applicants allegedly understated their income to qualify for larger taxpayer-funded subsidies.

Others allegedly received premium assistance despite failing to meet eligibility requirements.

But perhaps the most startling allegation involves people who may not have known they were enrolled at all.

Investigators identified what they call “phantom enrollments,” in which insurance brokers allegedly enrolled unsuspecting individuals into Obamacare plans to collect federal commissions.

The report argues that reduced verification requirements made that abuse substantially easier.

The Trump administration says it has responded by tightening the system — restoring stricter income verification requirements, ending several special enrollment periods, increasing screening for duplicate Medicaid enrollment and launching investigations into brokers suspected of creating phantom policies.

Oversight of agents participating in the federal marketplace has also been strengthened.

The result, according to the administration: nearly three million enrollments have already been removed.

Trump Admin: This Is About Protecting Taxpayers

Despite the enormous purge, approximately 19.2 million people remain covered through Affordable Care Act exchanges.

Administration officials insist the goal isn’t to strip legitimate Americans of health insurance.

They say it’s about stopping taxpayer money from flowing to people who don’t qualify — or to policies allegedly created without the supposed enrollee’s knowledge.

“Preserving the fiscal and programmatic integrity of the ACA Exchanges is key to safeguarding taxpayer-funded resources for those that truly need them,” the report states.

Then came an even sharper line:

“The federal government paying brokers to enroll individuals without their knowledge is not.”

The administration says enforcement isn’t finished.

“The Trump Administration continues to aggressively root out fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption by promulgating new regulations to improve program integrity, investigating suspected improper or fraudulent enrollment, and taking action against agents and brokers committing fraud.”

Another estimated 2.6 million enrollments remain under review as investigators continue auditing the federal exchanges.

Could This Reignite The Obamacare War?

The findings could hand Republicans fresh ammunition in a political fight that has raged for more than a decade.

Supporters of tougher enforcement argue the report shows exactly why strict eligibility verification is necessary — both to protect taxpayers and preserve healthcare subsidies for Americans who legitimately qualify.

Supporters of the Biden-era policies have argued that expanded enrollment measures made healthcare more accessible to eligible Americans.

But the Trump administration’s findings now raise a far more explosive question:

How did millions of allegedly improper, fraudulent or “phantom” enrollments make it into the system in the first place?

Trump has spent more than a decade pushing to replace Obamacare.

Now, with his administration alleging billions of dollars in improper taxpayer-funded payments and millions of questionable enrollments, Republicans could have a powerful new reason to put the Affordable Care Act back at the center of the national political fight.