“My team has already initiated a review of the Biden administration’s reported use of autopen for pardons,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi in a Thursday X post regarding the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into former President Joe Biden.
In a staff report titled “The Biden Autopen Presidency: Decline, Delusion, and Deception in the White House” the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform claimed to expose the Biden administration’s misuse of the autopen, a technology used by presidents for decades to sign documents. However, a different report issued by Oversight Democrats claimed that Biden’s use of the autopen was lawful and “consistent with past practice.”
“For nearly 100 years, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has held the view that pardons and other official decisions do not need to be personally signed by the president,” said their report.
According to the Shapell Manuscript Foundation, an “autopen” is a robot pen used to make supplicate signatures. It said that President Thomas Jefferson – in office from 1801 to 1809 – was the first to utilize one extensively. Per the Oversight Democrats’ report, President Harry Truman is “said to be the first president to use the modern autopen, and Lyndon B. Johnson was the first to publicize its use in the White House.”
President Donald Trump has also used an autopen, but “only for very unimportant papers,” according to the Associated Press. He used letters to “young people” as an example, and added that he did not use an autopen to sign pardons, calling Biden’s use of the autopen “disgraceful.”
Biden has defended his use of the technology, as Audacy reported earlier this year.
“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,” he said. “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
However, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led by Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said their new report demonstrates how “Biden’s top advisors, political operatives, and personal physician concealed the President’s mental and physical decline from the American people.” This report is based on 14 depositions and transcribed interviews with key Biden aides.
A press release from the committee said that as “Biden’s condition deteriorated, his aides exercised presidential authority and facilitated executive actions without his direct authorization, including misusing the autopen and failing to properly document decision-making processes.”
Comer sent a letter to Bondi requesting a review of all of the executive actions taken during Biden’s presidency. In her X post, the attorney general said that Comer’s “new information is extremely helpful.”
During Biden’s presidency and his canceled run for a second term, questions about his health and mental faculties were often raised. Since he left office, Comer and the oversight committee are not the only ones who have taken a deeper look at these questions. Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson of CNN released “Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” in May, highlighting alleged lies about Biden’s condition from the former president, his family and his advisors.
Biden, who will turn 83 next month, made history as the oldest person elected to the presidency when he won in 2020. Trump broke that record when he won the 2024 election at age 78.
Rep. Robert Garcia, a ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, slammed House Republicans this week over the investigation onto Biden.
“The testimonies also make it clear the former President authorized every executive order, pardon, and use of the autopen,” he said in a Tuesday statement. “Oversight Democrats are committed to working towards a better future for the American people. Now it’s time for Republicans to actually come back to work and reopen our government,” Garcia added, referring to the ongoing government shutdown fueled in part due to an impasse over healthcare between Democrats and the GOP.