WASHINGTON (TNND) — The pardon of Hunter Biden by his father, former President Joe Biden, has appeared to get under President Donald Trump’s skin since it happened.
But that pardon is just one of hundreds at the center of an investigation by the GOP-led House Oversight Committee, which argues in a brand new report that President Biden’s so-called cognitive decline, combined with his use of the autopen, warrants a second look by the Justice Department, echoing sentiments from Trump.
During a July 14 speech to Military Generals in Quantico, Virginia, President Donald Trump said, “The autopen is maybe one of the greatest scandals that we’ve had in 50 to 100 years.”
Trump even released a presidential portrait of his predecessor, depicting an autopen instead of Biden’s face.
As the GOP-led House Oversight Committee has spent the last several months investigating.
They’ve just released a report entitled “The Biden Autopen Presidency: Decline, Delusion and Deception in the White House.”
In addition, the committee has made public more than a dozen interviews with top Biden officials, as well as Former White House Physician Kevin O’Connor.
In one video, O’Connor is asked, “Were you ever told to lie about the President’s health?”
In response, O’Connor pleads the Fifth. “On the advice of counsel, I must respectfully decline to answer.”
At the center of the investigation are questions about who was actually making key policy decisions, including executive orders and pardons.
Republican lawmakers assert in the report, “As President Biden declined, his staff abused the autopen and a lax chain-of-command policy to effect executive actions that lack any documentation of whether they were in fact authorized.”
However, there also does not appear to be clear evidence they they weren’t authorized.
The committee is also questioning President Biden’s Chief of Staff, Jeff Zients, on the matter.
In the video, he is asked to read an email that came from his address.
“Can you read your response?”
“I approve of the use of the autopen for the execution of all the following pardons. Thanks, Jay Z,” he reads.
“Did you yourself write this email?” he is asked.
“I don’t not believe I did,” he responds, adding he believes his assistant, Rosa, instead was the author of the email.
Responses like this, they argue, provide reasons for them to ask the Justice Department to look into whether executive actions and pardons signed by the autopen should be deemed invalid.
This, despite President Biden telling The New York Times in July that when it came to clemency decisions, he “made every single one,” and said “The autopen was used to sign the warrants because there were a lot of them.”
Democrats on the committee called the investigation “a sham” and released their own report.
A spokesperson for Joe Biden also responded Tuesday and said in a statement that the congressional probe vindicated the former president.
“This investigation into baseless claims has 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. Congressional Republicans should stop focusing on political retribution and instead work to end the government shutdown.”
