Now, as the House Oversight Committee is looking into the pardons as part of its investigation into Biden’s use of the autopen and an alleged cover-up of the former president’s “mental decline” by key officials in his administration, Biden insisted he made “every single one” of the decisions in a phone call with the New York Times.

“I made every single one of those. 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,” Biden said, according to excerpts from the call.

Despite Biden’s insistence, however, he also confirmed to the outlet that he did not approve each name for the pardons that applied to groups of people. Instead, he signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a reduction in sentence.

Biden later revealed how that process worked, saying his aides would only read off the names of prominent figures, such as Milley.

“Well, first of all, there’s categories. So, you know, they aren’t reading names off for the commutations for those who had been home confinements for, during the pandemic. So the only things that really we read off names for were, for example, you know, was I, what was I going to do about, for example, Mark Milley?” Biden explained.

The former president added, “I laid out a strategy how I want to go about these, dealing with pardons and commutations. I was — and I pulled the team in to say this is how I want to get it done generically and then specifically. And so, you know, that’s just — this is how it worked.”

In terms of the autopen, Biden confirmed its usage, saying it was necessary because “there were a lot” of clemency decisions — over 4,000 of them, according to the Pew Research Center.

“The autopen is, you know, is legal. 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,” Biden said.

Biden’s defense comes as the Oversight Committee is slated to hear more testimonies from Biden’s senior staff over the next few weeks. Those include former assistant to the president Annie Tomasini, former chief of staff Ronald Klain, former counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti, former senior adviser to the president Mike Donilon, and former deputy chief of staff for policy Bruce Reed. A former aide for Jill Biden, Anthony Bernal, has also been subpoenaed after previously refusing to testify.

HOUSE OVERSIGHT INVESTIGATION INTO BIDEN AUTOPEN USE PLOWS AHEAD WITH MORE WITNESSES

In the New York Times interview, Biden suggested the investigation was “crazy,” calling the Republicans, and President Donald Trump, probing the idea that his aides covered up his decline “liars.”

“They’re liars. They know it. They know, for certain. I mean, this is — look, what they, they’ve had a pretty good thing going here. They’ve done so badly. They’ve lied so consistently about almost everything they’re doing. The best thing they can do is try to change the focus and focus on something else. And this is a — I think that’s what this is about,” Biden said.