Former President Joe Biden was adamant that he “made the decisions” and defended his use of an autopen during his presidency, hours after President Trump ordered an investigation.
Trump directed US Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday to open a probe and mused that some of Biden’s aides may have used the autopen system to get away with making key decisions for the 46th president, chiding that his mental acuity had declined.
“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” Biden said in a statement.
“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.”
Shortly after his departure from the White House, the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project uncovered evidence that the 46th president had used an autopen — a device to produce his signature — on a slew of key documents such as proclamations, pardons, and executive orders.
Trump quickly seized on those revelations and began to publicly cast doubt on the legitimacy of many of Biden’s actions, such as his flurry of last-minute pardons.
Earlier this week, the White House confirmed that Ed Martin, the head of an anti-weaponization working group, is investigating whether Biden “was competent and whether others were taking advantage of him through use of AutoPen or other means.”
House Republicans, led by Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), launched a similar inquiry and have summoned five former Biden aides to answer questions about Biden’s mental acuity and whether there was a cover-up.
Then on Wednesday, Trump went a step further and directed the probe into the autopen use specifically, something that will be led by White House counsel David Warrington in coordination with Bondi.
“In recent months, it has become increasingly apparent that former President Biden’s aides abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline and assert Article II authority,” Trump argued in a memo to Bondi.
“This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history,” he added. “The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.”
Since at least Thomas Jefferson, US presidents have used versions of an autopen to sign rudimentary documents such as holiday cards. The modern iteration of autopen use is believed to date back to Harry Truman, and presidents have used it in the decades since.
Trump openly questioned Biden’s mental fitness in office and strongly implied that some of his aides have taken advantage of the autopen.
“Given clear indications that President Biden lacked the capacity to exercise his Presidential authority, if his advisors secretly used the mechanical signature pen to conceal this incapacity, while taking radical executive actions all in his name, that would constitute an unconstitutional wielding of the power of the Presidency, a circumstance that would have implications for the legality and validity of numerous executive actions undertaken in Biden’s name,” Trump contended in the memo.
The investigation he ordered will look for any deals between Biden’s aides to “cooperatively and falsely deem recorded videos of the President’s cognitive inability as fake.”
All of this comes against the backdrop of renewed consternation over Biden’s cognition in light of “Original Sin” by journalist Jake Tapper, which was published last month and details the 46th president’s mental acuity during his four years in the White House.
