Joe Biden's autopen scandal is back in the news, but this time it is far more serious.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY) just released a scathing report, literally recommending the voiding of certain key orders that were signed with the autopen during the Biden administration.
Biden, of course, has denied any wrongdoing, insisting that he had the final say on all such orders, even though serious questions have arisen from former staff members concerning that claim.
When the issue of the autopen process and its potential misuse was first investigated, Biden insisted that he made the final call on all matters of importance.
At the time, he stated, “I made every decision,” adding that he and his advisors were considering pardons for a large number of people, thus requiring lots of signatures, so he approved the use of the autopen.
However, other reports surfaced that Biden only offered up guidelines for clemency grants, and other staffers, such as his chief of staff, had the final approval of the decisions that were ultimately made.
Email communications backed up that claim, as it appeared to be chief of staff Jeffrey Zients who signed off on using the autopen for many pardons. Confusion also arose because the timestamps on the emails at issue did not coincide with previous reports on Biden’s preferred work hours.
An Axios report on the matter offered up a picture of chaos around the Biden administration pardons, with one source stating, "There was a mad dash to find groups of people that he could then pardon — and then they largely didn't run it by the Justice Department to vet them.”
There was even a question as to whether Zients had actually sent the aforementioned emails, with the report claiming that the confirming emails came from Zients’ email address, but he was not the one who sent the messages.
The report stated, “Zients' aide Rosa Po, who had access to Zients' email account, wrote and sent the authorization of the president's autopen to senior White House officials on Zients' behalf.” The report went on to say this sometimes happened, “but only with his permission.”
The situation was made worse after the pardons were issued when Justice Department ethics attorney Bradley Weinsheimer penned a scathing memo regarding the backgrounds of some of those being pardoned, writing, "Unfortunately and despite repeated requests and warnings, we were not afforded a reasonable opportunity to vet and provide input on those you were considering.”
The report that was just released by the House Oversight Committee is a crushing blow to Biden on this front, with Comer suggesting that some of the autopen orders should be voided altogether.
In part, the report stated, "In the absence of sufficient contemporaneous documentation indicating that cognitively deteriorating President Biden himself made a given executive decision, such decisions do not carry the force of law and should be considered void.”
It continued, "The Department of Justice should immediately conduct a review of all executive actions taken by President Biden between January 20, 2021, and January 19, 2025. Given the patterns and findings detailed herein, this review should focus particularly on all acts of clemency. However, it should also include all other types of executive actions."
Democrats, of course, will fight this recommendation, but the GOP is not going to let the issue just die down. This is especially true since the report claims that Hunter Biden was involved in the process of issuing family member pardons, which, of course, included a pardon for himself. When Joe Biden’s team was asked for comments on the report, it stated that the claims were “baseless,” but there is ample reporting on this to back up the accusations made by Comey. This is a legit scandal for which Biden’s team will have to answer at some point.
