Joe Biden admitted that he used an autopen to grant controversial pardons at the end of his presidency, validating criticism from President Trump, who insists his predecessor "knew nothing about what he was signing."

For months, President Trump and his allies have said Biden's pardons have no legal validity because they were signed with an autopen. Biden has been making the rounds of the media to defend his tarnished presidency and the ignominious spree of pardons that ended it, which benefited his own family and some of the most brutal killers imaginable.

Biden's autopen bombshell

In an interview with the New York Times, Biden conceded that his staff issued sets of mass pardons with an autopen, saying there were simply too many to sign individually. They were granted on a categorical basis, and his input was limited to approving the broad criteria used for them.

“The autopen is, you know, is legal," Biden said. "As you know, other presidents used it, including Trump. But the point is that, you know, we’re talking about a whole lot of people."

It's a startling confession, considering the scope and impact of Biden's last pardons. Using the autopen, Biden's staff pardoned nearly every federal prisoner on death row and pre-emptively pardoned high-profile political figures like Anthony Fauci, as well as members of Biden's own family.

Sketchy process

The White House had a sketchy process for authenticating Biden's approval.

Assistants would take notes on the meetings where Biden discussed pardons with his top aides, such as Chief of Staff Jeff Zients. But the assistants who recorded those meetings were not actually present for them. They received their accounts of what happened from Biden's top advisers.

After confirming Biden's oral consent through this dubious process, staff secretary Stefanie Feldman would run the autopen. When pardon lists needed to be revised, his aides would sign the final versions without asking Biden first, the Times reported.

Biden discussed pre-emptive pardons for his own family members on his final night in office, the Times said. Zients was the one who approved them.

“I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons," Zients wrote in an e-mail at 10:31 p.m. on January 19.

Trump reacts

Still, Biden insisted he was not a spectator to these events.

"I made every single one of those," he told the Times. "And — including the categories, when we set this up to begin with. And so — but I understand why Trump would think that, because obviously, I guess, he doesn’t focus much. Anyway, so — yes, I made every decision."

Reacting to Biden's autopen admission, Trump told reporters at the White House Monday that Biden's autopen use is one of the "biggest scandals" of the past century and further evidence that a group of "radical Left people" ran his White House.

"I think the radical Left people that took — they took over the White House," he said. "If I didn't win, our country was finished."