Oversight Committee Calls on DOJ To Investigate Legitimacy of Biden Pardons

In its final report on President Biden’s use of the autopen, the House Oversight Committee is calling on the Department of Justice to investigate the legitimacy of the last-minute pardons and commutations not personally signed by Mr. Biden. The report also details senior aides’ insulation of the embattled president following his debate with President Trump last summer. The chairman of the committee, Congressman James Comer, launched his investigation earlier this year after Mr. Biden left the White House. “Executive actions performed by Biden White House staff and signed by autopen are null and void,” Mr. Comer says in concluding his probe, which included interviews with several of Mr. Biden’s top White House aides, as well as his personal physician. Mr. Biden has said that he approved all clemencies, telling the New York Times earlier this year that he “made every decision,” and that his staff used the autopen for the signatures because he was granting pardons and commutations to “a whole lot of people.”Mr. Comer says his investigation suggests otherwise, however. Emails and testimony from aides shows that it was the president’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, who was signing off on certain executive actions as the Biden administration prepared to depart office. Most notably, Mr. Comer claims that the approval of several pardons — including the preemptive pardons for Mr. Biden’s own family — is not “traceable” to the president before the pardons themselves were issued. “The Committee recommends the Department of Justice investigate all of former President Biden’s executive actions, particularly clemency actions, to assess whether legal action must be taken to void any action that the former president did not, in fact, take himself,” the report, entitled “The Biden Autopen Presidency: Decline, Delusion, and Deception in the White House,” states. A presidential pardon has never been revoked or declared “void” before, marking a high legal burden for any Republican or Trump administration official hoping to claw back the clemencies granted by Mr. Biden, whether or not they were signed using an autopen. Supreme Court precedent seems to bar anyone from questioning Mr. Biden’s pardons based on the exact means by which they were signed. In a 1974 decision, Schick v. Reed, the court held that the president holds “plenary” — or unlimited — power to issue clemencies as long as they do not “offend the Constitution.”Despite the challenges, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a social media post Tuesday afternoon that he department would cooperate with the Oversight Committee.“My team has already initiated a review of the Biden administration’s reported use of autopen for pardons,” she said, calling Mr. Comer’s information “extremely helpful, and his leadership on this issue is invaluable.”“We’ll continue working with [the committee] to deliver accountability for the American people,” she said.At the heart of the committee’s demand for a DOJ review of the autopen clemency grants are pardons granted to members of the Biden family in the final hours of Mr. Biden’s presidency. While the president did sign a pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, by hand in December, the autopen was used for pardons granted to Mr. Biden’s sister and two brothers — Valerie Biden Owens, Frank Biden, and James Biden, along with his brother-in-law and sister-in-law, John Owens and Sara Biden.“Testimony before the Committee confirmed that the pardons signed on January 19, 2025 — which included pardons for members of President Biden’s family — were apparently the result of an in-person meeting in the final hours of the presidency, for which there is no contemporaneous documentation,” the Oversight Committee report alleges. Based on their interview with Mr. Biden’s second and final chief of staff, the committee says it was Mr. Zients — not the president — who “verbally” approved the pardons. Mr. Zients’s own senior advisor, Rosa Po, sent an email to staff confirming that Mr. Zients approved the pardons for an autopen signature, according to emails made public by the committee. “Zients did so without confirming with President Biden that he had, in fact, granted these pardons after repeatedly telling the American people he would not pardon his son, Hunter, let alone the five other members of the Biden family in the waning hours of his presidency,” the report alleged. “The Committee deems void all executive actions signed by the autopen without proper, corresponding, contemporaneous, written approval traceable to the president’s own consent,” it continues. The report also focuses heavily on the alleged “cover-up” of Mr. Biden’s mental and physical decline. One witness brought in to testify about the president’s acuity was Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who served as the Biden family’s personal physician from the time Mr. Biden was chosen as President Obama’s running mate in the summer of 2008 — nearly 20 years ago. Mr. Comer states that the doctor “recklessly” chose to not administer a cognitive test to the president despite signs of deterioration. When he came in to testify behind closed doors, Dr. O’Connor invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. “Dr. O’Connor was not forthright in carrying out his ultimate duties to the country,” the report charges. Mr. Comer argues in the report that the District of Columbia Board of Medicine should review Dr. O’Connor’s actions, “including whether Dr. O’Connor produced false or misleading medical reports to the American people.”Two other staff members who were brought in for questioning — the president’s deputy chief of staff, Annie Tomasini, and first lady Jill Biden’s chief of staff, Anthony Bernal — similarly invoked their Fifth Amendment rights and chose not to answer the committee’s questions. “Dr. O’Connor’s, Tomasini’s, and Bernal’s invocations of the Fifth Amendment and refusals to be transparent before the public demonstrate that the cover-up has persisted, even since President Biden has left office,” the reporter argues.

Oversight Committee Calls on DOJ To Investigate Legitimacy of Biden Pardons

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