Senate Republicans will put the focus back on former President Joe Biden with their first hearing Wednesday on his cognitive status while in office and whether ex-White House officials shielded his health decline.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear testimony from former first-term Trump administration officials, including Sean Spicer, while Democrats will boycott proceedings they deride as a “political undertaking” unworthy of the panel’s time.
BIDEN AUTOPEN USE: WHAT TO KNOW AS TRUMP ORDERS AN INVESTIGATION INTO HIS PREDECESSOR
Here’s what to expect from the GOP-led hearing titled “Unfit to Serve: How the Biden Cover-Up Endangered America and Undermined the Constitution.”
Spicer previews witness testimony
The hearing will feature three Republican witnesses, two of whom served in Trump’s first term.
The witnesses are Spicer, former Trump White House press secretary and communications director; the Claremont Institute’s Theodore Wold, former acting assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy under Trump and former deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy; and the University of Virginia School of Law’s John Harrison.
Democrats declined to call any witnesses as part of their snubbing the hearing, which will be led by Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Eric Schmitt (R-MO).
In a preview of his message to senators, Spicer suggested he planned to criticize media coverage of Trump’s first term compared to how the press treated Biden’s presidency.
“The scrutiny that was baselessly directed at President Trump during his first term was wholly absent from the media coverage of the Biden White House,” Spicer told the Washington Examiner. “The media lacked any sense of curiosity that would naturally stem from what the public could see with their own eyes. Even in the face of deeply concerning — and public — signs of President Biden’s mental and physical decline, legacy media outlets were silent.”
GOP previews ‘forward-looking’ focus
The hearing will center more on the constitutional and procedural implications of Biden’s perceived unfitness and center less on medical testimony or direct claims of cognitive impairment.
The focus is expected to lean toward questions of executive authority, such as whether officials were making decisions in the White House during key moments of Biden’s presidency rather than the commander in chief, as well as what role aides or advisers may have played in concealing his limitations.
“I think we’re going to be very forward-looking,” Schmitt told the Washington Examiner. “I think it’s important that people have faith that they actually have a president who makes decisions and not by autopen or a bunch of nameless staffers, which is what was happening… It’s just exploring all aspects of the failure and making sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Cornyn said he has questions around the Cabinet’s ability to remove a sitting president via the 25th Amendment, such as who is “accountable when the Cabinet fails to do its duty?” and “are there penalties for failing to act?”
“Most importantly, as part of our legislative responsibilities, should Congress consider amending the 25th Amendment further to further clarify responsibilities and protocols in case this disaster befalls our nation again?” Cornyn said in Senate floor remarks.
Republicans plan to use the hearing to explore the alleged internal “cover-up” — not just within the administration but also the media — regarding Biden’s capacity. GOP senators are likely to highlight concerns about whether anyone else was effectively calling the shots during periods when Biden appeared visibly unaware or when he was out of the public eye.
Last week, Trump briefly attempted to link former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco to the immigration crisis and Biden’s use of an autopen in office. The device, used by presidents for decades for signatures on letters and other superlative purposes that House investigations have zeroed in on, is traditionally less used for executive orders or pardons.
“We’re moving murderers out of our country that were put here by Biden or the autopen. The autopen really did it. I mean, the people — whether it’s Lisa Monaco or whoever operated the autopen — these are criminals,” Trump said. “People are criminals who allow criminals into our country. And I don’t think that Biden knew what the hell he was doing. I don’t think he even knew about it.”
While Trump’s reference to Monaco and the autopen were vague, his remarks came as he and other Republicans, including an outside government watchdog group, have accused the former president of handling multitudes of official acts using the device.
The Oversight Project, formerly an extension of the conservative Heritage Foundation, claims to have uncovered three separate autopen signatures used during Biden’s presidency. It further alleges that there were at least eight separate occasions that the device was used on days when Biden was already signing separate legislation from the White House with an in-person signature.
It “raises serious questions about why the autopen was used so frequently when the President was readily available to sign these critical documents personally,” the Oversight Project said in a statement.
Biden, who is undergoing treatment for prostate cancer, has denied that his staff acted without his direction. His legal team has said the use of an autopen is a well-established legal practice, though Republicans and Trump have questioned whether Biden was aware of all the executive agenda items and pardons that were signed using the device.
“I made the decisions during my presidency,” Biden said in a statement earlier this month.
Democrats to snub ‘performative and theatrical’ hearing
Judiciary Committee Democrats will skip out on the hearing, designed by Republicans to offer a table-setter for ensuing GOP-led inquiries on Biden. Their absence is part of a broader strategy by Democrats to ignore what they consider dubious political fishing expeditions by Republicans.
“We have so many important topics to consider, and this is a totally political undertaking by several of my colleagues,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), the panel’s top Democrat. “It is a waste of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s time.”
Durbin will offer opening remarks and then depart.
Other Judiciary Committee Democrats either declined to comment whether they would participate or appeared inclined to also skip out.
“I think the hearing is more performative and theatrical than anything else,” Blumenthal told the Washington Examiner. “I’m not super interested in going to it. It’s not an issue that really involves what I view as my job as a United States senator.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) chastised Republicans for being “unrelenting in diversionary actions,” accusing them of trying to divert focus from President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill being debated in Congress by the GOP.
“It’s one of their many circus-like diversions that is a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” Schumer told reporters, borrowing a line from William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth.
Schmitt, the hearing’s Republican co-chair, said that “even the Democrats can’t defend Joe Biden’s shadow presidency.”
“It’s a shame Democrats are once again turning a blind eye and refusing to confront the truth — that Biden was unfit to govern, and those closest to him knew it all along,” Schmitt told the Washington Examiner.
Hearing to offer road map for parallel investigations
The hearing offers a preview of what may come from other ongoing, more in-depth GOP-led investigations into Biden.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is conducting his own inquiry behind the scenes. He has contacted more than two dozen current and former aides seeking “voluntary” interviews about Biden’s health in office, a debate that was reignited last month with the former president’s cancer diagnosis.
DEMOCRATS TO SNUB SENATE GOP HEARING ON BIDEN MENTAL DECLINE ‘COVER-UP’
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) is running a parallel but far more aggressive investigation that has homed in on his use of the autopen. Comer recently subpoenaed Biden’s physician for a deposition.
And the Justice Department, at the direction of Trump, will conduct a vast investigation into Biden’s health, the alleged cover-up, and whether someone else may have been secretly in control of the Oval Office.
