US Politics
Biden’s autopen pardons are ‘void’ due to mental decline, House Oversight Committee says
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Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have written to Attorney General Pam Bondi claiming that former president Joe Biden’s “cognitive decline” was so severe he may not have been aware of pardons he allegedly signed by autopen.
Conservatives on the committee advise Bondi that the 4,245 presidential pardons and commutations issued by the Democrat, 82, should therefore be placed under review and could be considered invalid.
This would potentially open up prosecution of the recipients, including Biden’s own son Hunter, currently protected by his clemency orders.
The panel “deems void President Biden’s executive actions that were signed using the Autopen, and the committee determines that action by the Department of Justice is warranted to address the legal consequences of that determination,” it said in its letter to Bondi, published Tuesday.
open image in gallery
The letter is accompanied by a 93-page report explaining the committee’s conclusions after conducting a months-long investigation into Biden’s use of autopens, a fixation of his successor President Donald Trump.
The report claims to have found “a cover-up of the president’s cognitive decline” and “no record demonstrating President Biden himself made all of the executive decisions that were attributed to him.”
However, it does not name anyone it believes carried out the president’s duties for him, includes no testimony from the former president himself, who was not subpoenaed, and does not include transcripts of the interviews carried out with 14 former Biden staffers, only excerpts.
The report does urge Bondi’s Justice Department to further investigate former White House physician Dr Kevin O’Connor and Biden aides Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini, who invoked the Fifth Amendment – protecting against self-incrimination – during their testimony.
open image in gallery
“Our report reveals how key aides colluded to mislead the public and the extraordinary measures they took to sustain the appearance of presidential authority as Biden’s capacity to function independently diminished, said Kentucky Republican Rep. James Comer, the committee’s chairman, in an accompanying statement calling for accountability.
“Executive actions performed by Biden White House staff and signed by autopen are null and void.”
Comer himself admitted to frequently using an autopen in July.
A spokesperson for Biden, who is recovering from prostate cancer treatment, dismissed the report by saying: “This investigation into baseless claims has confirmed what has been clear from the start: President Biden made the decisions of his presidency.
“There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, and no wrongdoing. Congressional Republicans should stop focusing on political retribution and instead work to end the government shutdown.”
open image in gallery
Biden himself has previously dismissed Republicans attempting to cast a shadow over his legacy as “liars,” a tack Democrats are likely to take in rubbishing the report as a partisan smear campaign.
But the former commander-in-chief’s mental wellbeing was called into question, not least by Trump, long before the disastrous CNN debate performance in Atlanta in June 2024 that ultimately killed off his candidacy, forcing him to stand aside to make way for then-vice president Kamala Harris.
Since his departure from the White House, behind-the-scenes books like Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin have kept alive the intrigue surrounding what really went on in the Biden camp last summer.
Trump himself has seized on the matter, issuing an executive order in June instructing Bondi and White House Counsel David Warrington to conduct “an investigation into who ran the United States while President Biden was in office” and his predecessor’s habitual use of autopens.
He has since jokingly removed Biden’s gilt-framed portrait from a walkway between the White House and West Wing and replaced it with a photograph of an autopen writing out his signature.
