After Former President Joe Biden left office, a “scandal” emerged regarding his administration's use of an autopen on important documents.
After many of Biden's pardons and executive orders were examined, it appeared that in many instances, the autopen was used to sign the documents rather having the president affix a wet signature. This became more of a scandal when it was revealed that many of these documents were executed in the waning days of the administration.
Now, it appears that one of the key shot callers was Jeff Zients, Biden’s chief of staff at the time.
After the aforemmentioned reports broke, President Donald Trump called for an investigation into the use of the autopen, questioning if the orders and pardons were even legal.
The order stated, “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."
It continued, “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’s suspicions were proven to be true based on the recent testimony of previous Biden staffers.
Neera Tanden, the former director of Biden's Domestic Policy Council, offered up a rather troublesome picture in Biden’s administration.
She stated that while she had been given authorization to use the autopen for documents, she was not aware of who was giving that final authority.
House Oversight chairman James Comer (R-KY) stated, "Ms. Tanden testified that she had minimal interaction with President Biden, despite wielding tremendous authority. She explained that to obtain approval for autopen signatures, she would send decision memos to members of the President’s inner circle and had no visibility of what occurred between sending the memo and receiving it back with approval."
Comer added, “Her testimony raises serious questions about who was really calling the shots in the Biden White House amid the President’s obvious decline. We will continue to pursue the truth for the American people."
Biden recently gave an interview to the New York Times, saying that he crafted key parameters for pardons, then left it up to his staff to create the recipient list, so he basically admitted that he had no idea who was being pardoned.
We are now finding out that it was likely Zients who gave the green light for the pardons issued to the likes of General Mark Milley and Dr. Anthony Fauci.
The Times report, cites an email from Zients giving that approval, having written, "I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons.”
So it was Zients providing the go-ahead, not Biden, and with many clemency grants having taken the form of unprecedented, pre-emptive pardons, I think the Trump administration can definitely make the case that these actions can and should be nullified.
