Senate Republicans came up with few answers on Wednesday after questioning three conservative witnesses about President Biden’s mental decline and its alleged cover-up by his senior staff. Legislative fixes to authentication of presidential signatures, especially in the wake of Mr. Biden’s much-maligned use of the autopen, was the only concrete goal seemingly put forth after the hearing. 

The House GOP, on the other hand, has been running a more successful investigation. The Oversight Committee, led by Congressman James Comer, is bringing in four senior Biden aides for interviews in the coming weeks to discuss the former president’s mental state and the staff’s effort to conceal it from the public. 

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee took its own bite at the apple, though it came up with few answers. The members heard testimony from President Trump’s first White House press secretary, Sean Spicer; a former Department of Justice official during the Reagan and first Bush administrations, John Harrison; and a former Idaho solicitor general, Theodore Wold.  

“Simply put, the last administration was rudderless,” the chairman, Senator Grassley, told the hearing room. He claimed that many of the last administration’s failures were the result of Mr. Biden’s personal diminishment and his staff’s decision to keep him away from the public and away from certain functions of the job. 

Mr. Grassley did not stay for the meeting, and instead handed the reins over to Senators Schmitt and Cornyn, who co-led the hearing for the Republicans. 

During his opening statement, Mr. Wold spoke about an investigation he led into the Biden administration’s use of the autopen to sign important documents.

“We found that of the 51 clemency warrants issues during the Biden presidency, over half — 32 in total — were signed with an autopen,” Mr. Wold said. “These include some of the most controversial acts of clemency of the Biden presidency, including death row commutations, and the preemptive pardons of members of the Biden family, Dr. Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, and more that were issued in the final days of the Biden presidency.”

“To be blunt: by using the autopen, anyone can sign documents as the president himself,” he declared. 

Mr. Spicer said he was there to testify simply about what it is like to work as a White House staffer, interacting with the president on a daily basis and being in line with the commander-in-chief’s thinking. He also talked about the press corps’ coverage of Mr. Biden’s mental state. 

“The media lacked any sense of curiosity that would naturally stem from what the public can 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,” he said. 

“News outlets weren’t the only ones complicit in covering up Biden’s decline. Presidential staff would have — or should have — been interacting with Biden on a daily basis. At best, his administration was grossly negligent,” Mr. Spiecer declared. “At worst, Biden’s staff actively concealed his fitness for office.”

When asked for specifics on how to solve these kinds of issues, Mr. Harrison — who has been a constitutional law professor at the University of Virginia for the last 32 years — said there’s likely nothing that can be done to remedy Mr. Biden’s use of the autopen retroactively. 

“It’s hard to think of anything Congress can do ex-post,” Mr. Harrison told Mr. Schmitt, speaking of some kind of recourse for their investigation into Mr. Biden’s use of the autopen. The professor did recommend a possible legislative change that would create new requirements for authentication of the president’s signature on any kind of executive orders or pardons, which would help create more clarity. 

When Mr. Schmitt asked Mr. Wold about the alleged cover-up, the witness said that it shouldn’t be him answering that question. “On some level, I’m not the right witness for this hearing. There should be members of the media here,” Mr. Wold said. “Maybe some of your Senate colleague.s … Obviously, his staff.”

When it came to Mr. Cornyn’s time for questioning, he said the most important question is whether Mr. Biden was aware of his staff using the autopen for key actions. Mr. Harrison responded only to say that the only real recourse for that is for the vice president and a requisite number of Cabinet members to vote to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove the president from office. 

Mr. Cornyn then mused about the possibility of Mr. Biden’s Cabinet officials and staff committing crimes, including perjury or forgery. Mr. Wold responded that that “could be” the case, though it is a question for a prosecutor, not Congress. 

Senator Britt turned her ire on the White House press corps during her questioning period, asking Mr. Spicer “how in the world” Congress can hold reporters “accountable.”

“What mechanism should be put in place to be able to hold them accountable for not actually following what is clearly in front of them?” she asked. 

Mr. Spicer responded only to praise the Trump White House for opening the door to the new media, like podcasters and new digital outlets, which now have a place in the briefing room. 

The hearing Wednesday was almost a Republican-only affair. The top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Durbin, gave his opening remarks to say that there are much more important things that they could be investigating at this time. 

“This committee has oversight responsibility over the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security,” Mr. During said. “So far this year, the Republican majority on this committee has not held a single oversight hearing, despite numerous critical challenges facing the nation.”

“Apparently armchair diagnosing former President Biden is more important than the issues of grave concern which I have mentioned,” Mr. Durbin said, referring to the unrest at Los Angeles and the sitting president’s mass deportation operation.