(The Center Square) – The use of autopen for executive actions, including pardons during former President Joe Biden’s presidency, has been questioned throughout the congressional investigation into his mental fitness, with some Republican lawmakers questioning the validity of those actions due to the use of the device.
President Donald Trump has described the Biden administration’s use of the autopen, a mechanical device used to place an individual’s signature on documents or other surfaces, to carry out executive actions, as “one of the biggest scandals” the country has seen in 50 to a hundred years.”
Some Republicans have suggested that some of the executive actions could be voided, pointing to the use of the autopen. However, there is already precedent for presidents using the device to carry out executive action.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led by chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., is currently leading the investigation and may have difficulty proving Biden didn’t approve the executive actions himself.
Attorney and legal scholar John Shu explained to The Center Square that “the president may authorize” his staff to “use the autopen to sign presidential documents, including pardons and clemency grants,” with the caveat that “the president is mentally competent.”
“If the pardon covers a group of people, there doesn’t have to be a separate, signed pardon for each individual. Instead, a specific description of the pardon’s applicable criteria is sufficient,” he added.
Shu cited historical precedents when presidents carried out mass pardons and did not sign individual documents.
“For example, Presidents Lincoln and Johnson pardoned secessionists who fought against the Union in the Civil War in order to heal the nation and bring it together. Similarly, President Carter pardoned a group of more than 250,000 Vietnam-era draft dodgers,” according to Shu.
The legal scholar explained that the crux of the autopen debate is Biden’s direct orders and the ability to prove he was not in sound mind when ordering the pardons.
“If a staffer or someone else decides on his own that someone should be pardoned without the president’s actual authorization, that would very likely be a criminal act, and the pardon’s validity would be in serious doubt. This isn’t merely because of autopen use, it’s because someone who is not the president committed a presidential act without the president’s knowledge or authorization and used the auto pen to essentially forge the president’s signature,” said Shu. “This would be even more true if the president was not of sound mind for any reason, because he would not be capable of authorizing or doing anything in that situation. In the case of President Biden, the Committee would have a challenge proving his mental status because it is unlikely that he was of unsound mind every moment of every day.”
The committee’s current challenge, however, is getting the witnesses to talk. So far, three key Biden witnesses in the investigation have invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in less than two weeks, with more likely to come.
As previously reported by The Center Square, the committee could potentially grant certain congressional witnesses immunity, a common tactic that would require them to testify because they no longer could self-incriminate and be subject to prosecution.
Questions regarding Biden’s mental fitness were raised well before the 2020 presidential election. Republicans and many in the conservative media continued to raise questions regarding the former president’s health throughout his presidency.
However, the White House claimed Biden received regular medical exams, showing a healthy, competent president.
The House committee announced in early June that it was expanding its investigation into the “cover-up” of Biden’s “mental decline.”
Comer sent letters to five former senior Biden White House aides, “demanding they appear for transcribed interviews.” Comer’s committee is investigating “potentially unauthorized issuance of sweeping pardons and other executive action.”
The investigations have been fueled in part by a book written by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, “Original Sin,” which the congressman quoted as claiming, “Five people were running the country, and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board.”
Karine Jean-Pierre, who served as Biden’s press secretary; Ian Sams, former assistant to the president and senior advisor in the White House Counsel’s Office; Andrew Bates, former deputy assistant to the president and senior deputy press secretary; and Jeff Zients, Biden’s former chief of staff, have also been called to testify in front of the committee.
