The House Oversight Committee released a nearly 100-page report on Tuesday deeming invalid those executive actions and pardons issued without proper authorization and with machine-generated signatures in former President Joe Biden’s name.
“Barring evidence of executive actions taken during the Biden presidency showing that President Biden indeed took a particular executive action, the Committee deems those actions taken through use of the autopen as void,” said the report.
‘Hold those who orchestrated this coup d’etat accountable.’
In hopes that real consequence might be dished out following their damning report — a report that suggests the country was effectively run in recent years by unelected Biden staffers — the Republican-led committee has also asked the Department of Justice to both review the validity of every executive action taken during the previous administration and to “determine whether legal action is necessary to ameliorate consequences of any illegitimate pardons granted, or executive actions implemented, throughout the Biden Autopen Presidency.”
The Oversight Project got the ball rolling in March by revealing that Biden’s signature on numerous executive orders, pardons, and other documents of national consequence was machine generated.
While other presidents have made extensive use of the so-called autopen, there is cause besides Biden’s mental deterioration to doubt the validity of many of the documents issued in his name.
For starters, there are reports of staffers and family members making decisions on his behalf; Biden allegedly admitted to having no memory of signing a greatly impactful order that bore an autopen signature; Biden’s signature appeared on documents while he was absent and in at least one case on vacation; and internal emails from the Justice Department show that there was a high-level understanding in the Biden administration that many of the commutations autopenned in the former president’s name were legally flawed.
Following a review of approximately 1,597 enrolled copies of documents bearing Biden’s signature — including pardon warrants and executive orders — the Oversight Project concluded in a Monday report that 846 of 958 executive orders, pardons, commutations, and proclamations were signed with autopen.
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Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
Broken down further by category, the Oversight Project indicated that of the Biden-era documents reviewed, 59.2% of the executive orders; 96.3% of the presidential proclamations; 75% of the pardons, including the pardons for Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, members of the Biden clan, and former members of the House Jan. 6 select committee; and 51.8% of the commutations were signed with autopen.
Biden apparently signed all but one bill into law by hand.
“We, as a nation, operated for years without a functioning president and instead ceded executive power to a politburo of unelected bureaucrats who exercised presidential power via autopen,” the watchdog group stated. “These statistics are alarming. The time is now for the administration and Congress to hold those who orchestrated this coup d’etat accountable.”
The Oversight Project’s bombshell exposé earlier this year paved the way for additional investigations into the legitimacy of autopen-signed Biden-era documents, namely those launched by DOJ pardon attorney Ed Martin, the Trump White House Counsel, and the House Oversight Committee.
The Oversight Committee’s Tuesday report, the product of a five-month probe, indicates that Biden aides made liberal use of the autopen to carry out official actions without evidence of the former president’s approval.
The committee — echoing a finding of the Oversight Project — found, for instance, that 32 of 51 clemency warrants were signed with digital copies of Biden’s signature but without any contemporaneous paperwork linking Biden to the decisions.
Former Idaho Solicitor General Theo Wold testified during a U.S. Senate hearing in June that with regard to the clemency warrants, the “president actually has to make the decision — that cannot be delegated to a staffer or an adviser,” but there was no indication “that anyone other than staff were making these decisions.”
In addition to highlighting apparent evidence that senior Biden White House aides exercised the authority of the former president, the committee asked the DOJ to investigate three top Biden White House aides who previously refused to testify to the committee: Biden White House physician Kevin O’Connor and aides Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini.
Blaze News has reached out to the DOJ for comment.
Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement obtained by CNN, “Our report reveals how key aides colluded to mislead the public and the extraordinary measures they took to sustain the appearance of presidential authority as Biden’s capacity to function independently diminished. Executive actions performed by Biden White House staff and signed by autopen are null and void.”
A Biden spokesperson stated, “This investigation into baseless claims has confirmed what has been clear from the start: President Biden made the decisions of his presidency.”
“There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, and no wrongdoing. Congressional Republicans should stop focusing on political retribution and instead work to end the government shutdown,” added the spokesperson.
Biden told news outlets in June, “I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations.”
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Autopen, Oversight committee, James comer, Comer, Oversight project, Pardon, Biden pardons, Commutation, President, Biden administration, Scandal, Politics
