Attorney General Pam Bondi announced a probe into former President Joe Biden’s alleged use of a digital autopen after a Tuesday House report cast doubt on the validity of his criminal pardons.
The House Oversight Committee recommended that the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigate the pardons and any other executive orders that may have relied on his staff’s autopen in its report, saying the orders “cannot all be deemed his own.” Biden’s pardons of his son and other family members and clemency orders for violent criminals present the most glaring concerns, the report says.
“[House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer’s] new information is extremely helpful, and his leadership on this issue is invaluable,” Bondi said in a Tuesday X post. “We’ll continue working with [the committee] to deliver accountability for the American people.”
Biden’s personal office did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
The aging Democratic figure, whose cognitive decline led him to drop out of the 2024 presidential race under pressure from his party, outsourced basic tasks to his close staffers in the waning days of his presidency and was under heavy supervision, the committee wrote, citing interviews of those involved. The investigations showed “holes in the chain of custody” regarding Biden’s decision binder, lawmakers wrote.
This pattern of behavior allegedly led staffers to apply via autopen Biden’s digital signature to the pardons for his family members in January without documenting the decision, according to the committee.
“The authority to grant pardons is not provided to the president’s inner circle,” the House Oversight Committee wrote. “Nor can it be delegated to particular staff when a president’s competency is in question. Importantly, even if this authority could be delegated — which it cannot — it would have to be expressly delegated by President Biden himself.”
“The Committee deems void all executive actions signed by the autopen without proper, corresponding, contemporaneous, written approval traceable to the president’s own consent,” the report said.
Multiple former staffers invoked the Fifth Amendment in interviews with the committee to remain silent on certain topics in the investigation, the committee said.
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