\n Former President Joe Biden experienced such \u201ccognitive decline\u201d while in office that it remains a serious question as to whether he was aware of the substance of the various pardons and commutations signed in his name via autopen<\/a>, the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee asserted in a letter it sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi, urging her to consider whether that clemency might be invalid and to take action for potential prosecution against some of Biden\u2019s aides.\n <\/p>\n \n The committee \u201cdeems void President Biden\u2019s executive actions that were signed using the Autopen, and the committee determines that action by the Department of Justice is warranted to address the legal consequences of that determination,\u201d it wrote to Bondi in the letter released Tuesday morning.\n <\/p>\n \n The letter was made public alongside a 93-page report outlining the committee\u2019s conclusions from its months-long investigation into Biden\u2019s use of the autopen. It alleged the committee had found \u201ca cover-up of the president\u2019s cognitive decline\u201d and \u201cno record demonstrating President Biden himself made all of the executive decisions that were attributed to him.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Biden has publicly disputed that, saying he made all decisions as president and calling Republicans who have suggested otherwise \u201cliars.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n To support its assertions, the committee report includes excerpts of interviews with 14 former senior Biden aides, and it released transcripts and video later Tuesday morning. Although the committee raised serious questions about the Biden administration\u2019s process for awarding pardons, it did not cite any direct evidence that anyone other than Biden made the decisions that his staff later put into effect. Instead, the committee pointed to a lack of clear records indicating that Biden was the decision-maker. The panel did not subpoena Biden to testify in the probe.\n <\/p>\n \n Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking member on the House Oversight committee, called the report a \u201csham investigation\u201d in a statement, adding that \u201cevery White House official testified President Biden fully executed his duties as President of the United States.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe testimonies also make it clear the former President authorized every executive order, pardon, and use of the autopen,\u201d Garcia said while calling on House Republicans to reopen the government.\n <\/p>\n \n In their interviews, Biden aides defended the process they had in place for using the autopen and stated firmly that Biden made his own decisions.\n <\/p>\n \n Republicans have long raised questions about Biden\u2019s mental state, but in releasing the report, the GOP-led committee seemed to suggest a path for continued impacts of its work.\n <\/p>\n \n The letter specifically asked that the Justice Department further investigate three top Biden White House aides who invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify<\/a> to the committee: former White House physician Dr. Kevin O\u2019Connor, and Biden aides Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini.\n <\/p>\n \n Invoking the Fifth Amendment is typically done to avoid answering specific questions. Though it can be perceived by the public as a way of avoiding accountability, the US Supreme Court has long regarded the right against self-incrimination as a venerable part of the Constitution and, in legal proceedings, tried to ensure that a witness\u2019 silence not be viewed as evidence of guilt.\n <\/p>\n \n The Committee also wrote to the Board of Medicine for Washington, DC, requesting that it investigate whether O\u2019Connor should be disciplined\u202fin any manner for \u201cissuing misleading medical reports, misrepresenting treatments, failing to conform to standards of practice, or other acts of violation of District of Columbia law regulating licensed physicians.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Former Biden chief of staff Jeff Zients told the committee<\/a> that after Biden\u2019s disastrous debate performance last year, he recommended O\u2019Connor conduct a full medical workup, including a cognitive exam, and O\u2019Connor said he would take the suggestion under advisement.\n <\/p>\n \n CNN has reached out to O\u2019Connor, Bernal, Tomasini, Zients, and former staffer Bruce Reed. A Biden spokesperson said, \u201cThis investigation into baseless claims has confirmed what has been clear from the start: President Biden made the decisions of his presidency.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere was no conspiracy, no cover-up, and no wrongdoing. Congressional Republicans should stop focusing on political retribution and instead work to end the government shutdown,\u201d the spokesperson said.\n <\/p>\n \n The book \u201cOriginal Sin: President Biden\u2019s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,\u201d co-authored by CNN\u2019s Tapper and Axios\u2019 Alex Thompson, documented how Biden, his closest aides and his family forged ahead with the former president\u2019s doomed 2024 reelection bid despite signs of his physical and mental decline.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cOur report reveals how key aides colluded to mislead the public and the extraordinary measures they took to sustain the appearance of presidential authority as Biden\u2019s capacity to function independently diminished. Executive actions performed by Biden White House staff and signed by autopen are null and void,\u201d said Kentucky Republican Rep. James Comer, the committee\u2019s chairman, said in a statement that called for accountability.\n <\/p>\n \n The committee\u2019s assertion that Bondi seek to act on their declaration of Biden\u2019s actions as \u201cvoid\u201d suggested they were exploring legal ways to undo his grants of clemency. Such a move would likely face significant legal challenges; there is no mechanism or precedent to reverse a pardon issued by a past president, legal experts say. In 2005, during the second Bush administration, the Justice Department looked at the legality of a president\u2019s use of the autopen and endorsed it \u2013 so long as the decision came from the president.\n <\/p>\n \n Still, Trump administration officials appeared to be contemplating a world in which the pardons would be invalidated. In a Monday email CNN obtained from a source<\/a>, the Trump-installed Pardon Attorney at the Justice Department, Ed Martin<\/a>, told Comer that his \u201congoing investigation\u201d of the way that pardons and commutations were issued during Biden\u2019s presidency had revealed \u201cabuses\u201d of the process by \u201cpolitical actors.\u201d He wrote that his office would not defend any of the acts of clemency \u201cwithout further investigation.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMy office cannot support the validity of AutoPen pardons for individuals such as Anthony Fauci, Adam Schiff, Mark Milley, and many more without further examination and fact-finding,\u201d he wrote.\n <\/p>\n \n In a post on X, Bondi said her team was \u201creviewing the Biden administration\u2019s reported use of autopen for pardons,\u201d and that she looked forward to working alongside the Oversight Committee \u201cto deliver accountability for the American people.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Even before the committee\u2019s action, the Justice Department and the White House had been looking into Biden\u2019s use of the autopen, which had long been a fixation of President Donald Trump.\n <\/p>\n \n CNN reported in May<\/a> that Martin, who also heads the Justice Department\u2019s Weaponization Working Group to look into whether alleged efforts by the previous administrations to improperly use the levers of government, had been examining Biden\u2019s past pardons.\n <\/p>\n \n In June,\u202fTrump issued an executive order\u202f<\/a>instructing Bondi and the White House counsel to conduct \u201can investigation into who ran the United States while President Biden was in office,\u201d as well as Biden\u2019s use of an\u202fautopen for important orders. That probe was to include \u201cwho authorized its use, and the validity of the resulting Presidential policy decisions.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The\u202fBiden camp responded to the executive order with a written statement calling Trump\u2019s assertions\u202f\u201cridiculous and false.\u201d \u201cLet me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations,\u201d the statement said.\n <\/p>\n \n Biden then spoke to New York Times reporters<\/a> on the phone, telling the newspaper in a 10-minute interview that he \u201cmade every decision\u201d and pardoned people proactively so they would not face costly Justice Department investigations when Trump took over.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cEverybody knows how vindictive he is, so we knew that they\u2019d do what they\u2019re doing now,\u201d Biden told The Times at the time, adding, \u201cI consciously made all those decisions.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n As president, Biden issued pardons and commutations to 4,245 people \u2013 more acts of clemency than any other president. Perhaps most controversially, he preemptively pardoned prominent Trump critics and members of his own family, including his son who was convicted of federal tax-related charges, fearing they might be targeted for retribution when Trump took office for a second time.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThese are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,\u201d Biden wrote at the time in a statement about the initial batch of pardons, issued hours before he was set to welcome Trump to the White House for tea before attending his swearing-in. \u201cBaseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety and financial security of targeted individuals and their families.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The final section of the report sought to outline issues with Biden\u2019s use of the autopen.\n <\/p>\n \n While former staffers like Reed said the Biden administration\u2019s practice for pardons was like \u201cthe prior two administrations\u201d for whom he served, the House Oversight Committee raised questions about how the pardons were implemented.\n <\/p>\n \n The committee focused specifically on the lack of documentation around a key in-person meeting where the pardons for Biden\u2019s family, Dr. Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley and members of the January 6 Committee were allegedly finalized.\n <\/p>\n \n The pardons were conveyed by a \u201cgame of telephone,\u201d the committee said. The report noted Biden\u2019s decision was conveyed by Reed and\u202fWhite House Counsel Ed Siskel to Rosa Po, an aide to White House chief of staff Jeff Zients. From there, Po called Zients, Zients authorized Po to send an email authorizing the use of autopen to sign the pardons, and Po sent the email to the staff secretary\u2019s office, who then told someone to use the autopen for pardons.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIn light of the former president\u2019s cognitive deterioration and the cover-up from his inner circle, this \u2018approval\u2019 process calls into question the validity of all pardons reportedly granted by President Biden throughout his tenure,\u201d the committee stated, deeming \u201cvoid\u201d every executive action signed by the Joe Biden autopen \u201cwithout proper, corresponding, contemporaneous, written approval traceable to the president\u2019s own consent.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The panel\u2019s final report highlighted former Biden White House staffers\u2019 testimony in which they expressed degrees of confusion about the decision-making process.\n <\/p>\n \n Former White House Staff Secretary Neera Tanden, who was responsible for managing paper flow to the president, told committee investigators that she didn\u2019t know what happened to the decision book between when she gave the materials to the Oval Office operations team and received it back with Biden\u2019s signature, the report alleges. Zients said in another excerpt that he did not know who actually operated the autopen and shared that Hunter Biden did take part in some of the pardon discussions. And former White House chief of staff Ron Klain testified during one portion of his interview that Biden made some executive decisions \u201corally,\u201d but the excerpt didn\u2019t address whether that pertained to pardon decisions.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe Biden White House\u2019s executive decision-making procedures were so lax that the chain of custody for a given decision is difficult or impossible to establish,\u201d the panel wrote. \u201cDocuments that were used to predicate executive actions should <\/em>be sufficiently traceable to ensure they reflect the will of the president. Instead, the Biden White House\u2019s flimsy procedure appears to have been extremely vulnerable to abuse.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The aides, though, insisted to House Oversight investigators that Biden was making the calls. Tanden said there were never any executive orders auto-penned based solely on a senior advisor\u2019s request. She said she never authorized the use of the autopen without a signature card from the former president.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI sometimes have a reputation for toughness, and I always require the signature card,\u201d Tanden said, according to a transcript.\n <\/p>\n \n Klain said, \u201cWe used the same process that I thought prior presidents had used.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n And Zients emphasized that the picture that Republicans were trying to paint about the pardon process was not accurate.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI don\u2019t want you to miss the rigor and the amount of iterations, the amount of time the president spent on pardons. He made these decisions, obviously, but he also made these decisions after, in most cases, many, many meetings,\u201d Zients said.\n <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/2025-09-30t213557z-789068816-rc2l2haiywdn-rtrmadp-3-usa-trump.jpg?c=original&q=w_860,c_fill\")
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