Senior Justice Department officials were left scrambling to interpret sweeping clemency orders former President Joe Biden approved for thousands of federal convicts in his final days in office, and they chastised the White House for falsely portraying the releases as limited to “nonviolent” offenders, according to internal emails.

The records, obtained by the Oversight Project and reviewed by the Washington Examiner, reveal that former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer, the department’s top career official at the time, raised alarms immediately after Biden issued three autopen-signed warrants on Jan. 17, covering nearly 2,500 inmates.