President Donald Trump ordered an investigation into former President Joe Biden’s actions and autopen use in a Wednesday memorandum that cites his predecessor’s “cognitive decline.”
Part of the memo calls on the counsel to the president, in consultation with Attorney General Pam Bondi and other agency heads, to probe whether “certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President,” setting up a potentially widespread investigation into allegations Biden’s team waged a cover up of his health.
The memo orders that the investigation include “any activity, coordinated or otherwise, to purposefully shield the public from information regarding Biden’s mental and physical health” and “any agreements between Biden’s aides to cooperatively and falsely deem recorded videos of the President’s cognitive inability as fake.”
Biden dismissed the suggestions in Trump’s memo, saying in a statement Wednesday evening, “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
The former president went on to call his successor’s executive action a “distraction” and take a swing at his domestic policy bill. “This is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations.”
Biden’s advisers have denied any coordinated effort to conceal from the public his deteriorating condition during the final years of his presidency.
Another part of the Trump memo specifically calls for a review of “the policy documents for which the autopen was used, including clemency grants, Executive Orders, Presidential memoranda, or other Presidential policy decisions.”
Trump has been personally fixated on Biden’s use of the autopen for several weeks, privately telling his top officials that he believed it needed to be investigated, two sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.
The Justice Department in 2005, during the second Bush administration, looked at the legality of the president’s use of the autopen, endorsing it.
A president doesn’t have to physically sign his signature to a bill for it to have the power of law — and this “well-settled legal understanding,” the Justice Department said at the time, dates back to the founding of the country. As long as the president personally makes the decision to approve and sign a bill, he’s using his authority appropriately, the Office of Legal Counsel opinion says.
The autopen was first used by President Barack Obama to sign legislation.
Trump, while addressing reporters on Air Force One in March, claimed, “I never use it,” before adding, “I mean, we may use it, as an example, to send some young person a letter, because it’s nice. … But to sign pardons and all of the things that (Biden) signed with an autopen is disgraceful.”
CNN reported last week that Ed Martin, whom Trump tapped to lead the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group, is breathing new life into that project, which has expanded to include subjects such as pardons issued by Biden.
Martin, for example, recently sent a letter to the National Archives requesting information about White House operations under the Biden administration, according to a source familiar with this work. He is also seeking information related to Operation Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the investigation into links between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.
CNN’s Katelyn Polantz, Paula Reid, Casey Gannon and Arlette Saenz contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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