(The Lion) — Congressional Republicans will soon release their investigation into whether former President Joe Biden’s inner circle used an autopen to govern on his behalf while allegedly concealing the former president’s cognitive decline.
The House Oversight Committee has been digging into whether “critical decisions” were made on Biden’s behalf by his staffers, including executive actions and pardons.
The committee wrapped up “interviews with key Biden aides” and will “soon” report its findings to the American public, Chairman James Comer, R-Kentucky, said in a statement.
“The House Oversight Committee has uncovered how the Biden Autopen Presidency ranks among the greatest scandals in U.S. history,” Comer said, per the Associated Press on Tuesday. “As President Biden declined, his staff abused the autopen to carry out unauthorized executive actions.”
According to the committee, some Biden aides have been reported to have “been operating with unchecked authority,” and some of the closest witnesses to Biden have invoked their Fifth Amendment rights to avoid willingly testifying.
Comer has said the public deserves to know “who was actually calling the shots in the Biden White House,” going as far to say as “it wasn’t Joe Biden.”
“His mental decline was obvious to anyone paying attention,” Comer said in a statement. “But instead of being honest, the Biden Administration, Democrats in Congress, and the legacy media lied and covered it up. They gaslit the American people while propping up a man who was unfit to lead.”
Biden, for his part, has denied any misuse of the autopen.
“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,” he said in a statement earlier this year. “Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
Despite Biden’s denial, President Donald Trump appears unconvinced. He recently added a Presidential Walk of Fame to the White House, where he included portraits of all the presidents except for Biden – using a picture of an autopen signing Biden’s name in its place.
Like Comer, Trump has been outspoken in his concerns about Biden’s mental health and if he was the one making decisions during his presidency.
“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 said via a presidential memo in June. “This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history.”
