Former President Joe Biden doubled down on his usage of an autopen on Wednesday, claiming that he had control of the White House throughout his tenure.
Alleging that senior officials concealed the former president’s cognitive impairmentusing autopen signings, President Donald Trump requested an investigation into Biden’s administration.
“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” Biden said in a statement.
“This is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations,” he added.
On Wednesday, Trump urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to launch an inquiry against senior Biden officials, claiming they may have plotted to mislead the public about his mental health and exercised presidential authority by using the autopen.
In a memo released on Wednesday, Trump stated that the president of the United States wields enormous authority and responsibility through his signature. Not only can the signature transform words into laws, but it can also assign people to some of the most powerful posts in government, adopt or repeal national policies, and release convicts.
“In recent months, it has become increasingly apparent that former President Biden’s aides abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline and assert Article II authority,” Trump wrote.
“This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history. The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts,” Trump continued.
“Given clear indications that President Biden lacked the capacity to exercise his Presidential authority, if his advisors secretly used the mechanical signature pen to conceal this incapacity, while taking radical executive actions all in his name, that would constitute an unconstitutional wielding of the power of the Presidency, a circumstance that would have implications for the legality and validity of numerous executive actions undertaken in Biden’s name,” Trump added.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt emphasized the significance of the inquiry, which was announced by President Trump’s pardon attorney, Ed Martin, stating that “the American people deserve answers.”
“The president is making a good point when he discusses the usage of the autopen,” Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday, the Washington Examiner reported. “Who was running the country for the past four years?”
Leavitt pushed back against criticism that the investigation was backward-looking, instead pointing to what Trump highlighted as key achievements of his administration, including progress on border security and the economy.
“It’s still, nevertheless, is a very important issue, and it was a huge issue that sent the president back to this White House,” she said. “Americans saw with their own eyes a mentally incompetent president, and they want answers for that, and the president believes they should have them.”
Martin told Justice Department staff on Monday that he has been instructed to investigate clemency actions taken by Biden.
The probe includes Biden’s reported pardons of family members during his final days in office and his commutation of death sentences for 37 federal inmates to life imprisonment.
Martin told aides in an email that the investigation would try to reveal whether Biden “was competent and whether others were taking advantage of him through use of AutoPen or other means,” according to Reuters.
Martin indicated he is examining Biden’s whereabouts at the time the pardons were signed, raising questions about why an autopen was used if the former president was physically present in Washington, D.C.
Republicans in both the House and Senate have launched investigations into Biden’s use of the autopen and whether he was truly making key decisions during his time in office.
