House Democrats intensified their pushback against a new House Oversight Committee report scrutinizing former President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen, framing the investigation as a political diversion while the federal government remains shut down, despite the fact that the committee’s investigation began months earlier.
“While House Republicans obsess about President Biden’s health, they are ripping away healthcare from 17 million Americans and spiking premiums,” ranking member Robert Garcia (D-CA) said. “Despite this sham investigation, every White House official testified that President Joe Biden fully executed his duties as President of the United States. The testimonies also make it clear the former President authorized every executive order, pardon, and use of the autopen. … Now it’s time for Republicans to actually come back to work and reopen our government.”
A Biden spokesperson likewise dismissed the GOP’s findings in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “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,” the spokesperson said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) slammed the report to reporters Tuesday afternoon, saying House Oversight Committee chairman Rep James Comer (R-KY) acts like a “malignant clown.”
The Republican-led committee on Tuesday released a 93-page report and a referral letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, asserting Biden experienced such “cognitive decline” that it is unclear whether he was aware of the substance of pardons, commutations, and other actions signed in his name via autopen. The panel deemed “void” actions signed by autopen and urged the DOJ to weigh whether potential criminal acts were committed by three senior members of Biden’s inner circle who invoked their Fifth Amendment protections when they sat for a closed-door deposition, while also urging D.C.’s Board of Medicine to consider removing the medical license of former White House physician Kevin O’Connor.
The autopen controversy’s roots trace back to the Oversight Project, a conservative group formerly affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, which in early March helped raise Republican interest in Biden’s autopen use. Since then, the controversy has risen all the way up to President Donald Trump, who said in July, “I guarantee you he knew nothing about what he was signing.”
“WHOEVER CONTROLLED THE AUTOPEN CONTROLLED THE PRESIDENCY,” the Oversight Project posted to social media on March 6, claiming it had collected Biden-era documents and found “all used the same autopen signature” except his 2024 withdrawal announcement. On Tuesday, Oversight Project president Mike Howell called the House report a test for the DOJ.
“The ultimate test is whether Attorney General Bondi will prosecute individuals whose ‘pardons’ were never valid in the first place and execute or re-arrest those who did not receive valid commutations,” he said.
In a summary of its review, the Oversight Project alleged that it has examined roughly 1,597 enrolled documents bearing Biden’s signature and found that 88.3% of non-bill items (executive orders, pardons, commutations, proclamations) were autopen-signed; 82.2% of those autopen-signed actions occurred while Biden was in Washington; and that the autopen was first deployed on day five of Biden’s presidency for a proclamation in 2021. The group has identified at least four different autopen signature variants used by the former administration.
READ IN FULL: HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE RELEASES BIDEN COGNITIVE DECLINE AND AUTOPEN REPORT
Democrats counter with a staff memo saying nearly 60 hours of testimony from 14 former senior aides portray Biden as fully engaged and that no witness corroborated autopen use without his authorization. They also cite long-standing Justice Department opinions, including a 2005 Office of Legal Counsel memo, concluding a president may direct a subordinate to affix his signature — by autopen — so long as the decision is the president’s.
Bondi on Tuesday announced that her team is looking into the Biden administration’s use of the autopen. “We look forward to working alongside [the committee] to deliver accountability for the American people,” she said. A DOJ spokesperson likewise confirmed the department received a letter sent by Comer to Bondi.
