The Republican-led House Oversight Committee on Tuesday declared that President Joe Biden’s autopen-signed pardons and commutations are “void”, alleging that the former president’s cognitive decline was so severe he may not have personally authorized them.
In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, the panel urged the Justice Department to review the clemency actions and consider possible prosecutions of top Biden aides involved in their execution. The letter was released alongside a 93-page report accusing Biden’s staff of covering up his alleged cognitive deterioration and failing to maintain records proving he approved executive decisions attributed to him.
“The committee deems void President Biden’s executive actions that were signed using the autopen,” the letter said. “Action by the Department of Justice is warranted to address the legal consequences of that determination.”
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Biden, 82, has rejected the claim that he wasn’t fully in charge during his presidency. “I made every decision,” he told The New York Times last year, calling GOP assertions “ridiculous and false.”
The Oversight Committee cited interviews with 14 former Biden officials but offered no direct evidence that anyone other than Biden made clemency decisions. It focused instead on what it called a lack of “traceable documentation” confirming his personal involvement.
Democrats on the panel dismissed the report as politically motivated.
“This is a sham investigation,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the committee’s ranking member. “Every White House official testified that President Biden fully executed his duties as President of the United States.”
The letter asked the Justice Department to investigate three aides who invoked the Fifth Amendment during questioning: Biden’s former physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor, and aides Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini. The committee also asked Washington, D.C.’s Board of Medicine to review whether O’Connor misled the public about Biden’s health.
Republicans have long questioned Biden’s mental acuity, but the new report marks their most sweeping effort yet to challenge the legitimacy of his presidential actions.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the committee’s chairman, said in a statement, “Our report reveals how key aides colluded to mislead the public and sustain the appearance of presidential authority as Biden’s capacity diminished.”
The report calls for the Justice Department to determine whether aides committed crimes by authorizing the autopen signatures without Biden’s “contemporaneous consent.” Legal experts, however, note there is no precedent for reversing presidential pardons, and the Justice Department previously affirmed that autopen use is legal if the president directs it.
Biden’s clemency record—4,245 pardons and commutations—was the largest in U.S. history, including controversial preemptive pardons for family members and Trump-era critics. The Oversight report questions whether Biden reviewed all the names and alleges “violent offenders” were among those granted clemency.
A Biden spokesperson said the investigation “confirmed what has been clear from the start: President Biden made the decisions of his presidency. There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, and no wrongdoing.”
The Justice Department declined to comment.
