Did President Autopen just run out of ink?
That’s a serious question but probably does require some explanation. Recent months have been filled with so-called tell-all books from Biden administration insiders. In trying to boost sales, they write about how Biden’s cognitive impairment was a preoccupation around the White House. Staff had to use teleprompters for informal meet-and-greet events. The use of note cards is not unusual, but Biden’s note cards included names and pictures of people he had known for decades but now could not recall their names.
Press conferences had to be stage-managed with questions screened in advance, answers written down, and only certain reporters allowed to ask the questions. White House staff even painted lines on the floor in certain rooms so that Biden knew where to walk. Sometimes, Biden wandered off anyway and had to be guided back to the relevant events because he had no idea where he was.
Staff Phoniness
If Biden’s mental decline was so obvious, why weren’t these insiders writing about it years ago? Why did staffers tolerate and even cover up what was clearly a dangerous situation? And there’s nothing especially revealing about these books. Everyday Americans knew Biden was impaired in 2020 when he yelled at one supporter and called her “a lying dog-faced pony soldier.” What?
Biden’s incoherent performance in a live presidential debate with Donald Trump on June 27, 2024, made Biden’s mental impairment plain for all to see. Biden withdrew from the presidential race a few weeks later. Again, this came as no surprise to those who have viewed Biden objectively. But it did seem to surprise the staff who had been in denial or actively engaged in a cover-up of mental illness that had now failed utterly.
The Pardon King
Still, the repercussions of Biden’s dementia have not ended just because he’s no longer president. Biden issued hundreds of pardons in the final days of his administration, including to members of his own crime family (Hunter, Jimmy, Frankie, Valerie and some of their spouses) and to medical frauds like Anthony Fauci.
Other high-profile pardons included the traitorous General Mark Milley, the RINO Liz Cheney, and other members of the phony January 6 investigation committee and their staffs. On January 17, 2025, with just 72 hours left in office, Biden commuted the sentences of 2,490 people in one day.
Biden issued 4,245 pardons or clemency grants during his four years as president. This compares with 200 for George W. Bush (one term), 1,927 for Barack Obama (two terms), and 1,700 for Donald Trump (first term and second term to date). Biden offered more than twice as many pardons and clemency grants as Obama in half the time. For the record, George Washington issued only 16 pardons or grants of clemency in eight years. By every measure, Biden was a pardon machine.
The Autopen Scandal
The president’s pardon power is largely uncontested. But Biden’s pardons were signed by autopen. That can be legal if the person whose signature is being applied knows the autopen is being used, knows why it is being used and has agreed to its use. It now appears some or all of these conditions were not satisfied with regard to the most high-profile pardons.
There was no chain of command on the use of the autopen, no written records or log, and no evidence that Biden even knew what was going on. This has now been revealed in a near 100-page congressional report.
The investigation of the use of the autopen on which the report was based was conducted by the House Oversight Committee. That committee said that their findings about the abuse of Biden’s autopen signature constituted the greatest political scandal in U.S. history.
In House investigatory hearings, witnesses testify under oath. This means the witnesses can be prosecuted for perjury if they lie to the committee. In the face of this, some of the most important witnesses in the autopen investigation claimed their Fifth Amendment privilege and refused to testify. Witnesses who “took the fifth” included Anthony Bernal (Chief of Staff to First Lady Jill Biden), Annie Tomasini (a senior White House aide), and Kevin O’Connor (the White House physician to Joe Biden).
Bernal, Tomasini and O’Connor had some of the most direct contact with Joe Biden and Jill Biden and were in the best position to observe Biden’s behavior and his cognitive ability. If there were a cover-up of Biden’s mental decline, they were in the best position to participate in the cover-up. Jill Biden in particular was in a position to dictate the use of the autopen. Taking the Fifth Amendment does not prove guilt. But a legitimate fear of prosecution for crimes is a predicate to the use of the Fifth Amendment. Everyday Americans and potential jurors in future trials are free to draw their own conclusions.
Big Fish Beware
In the end, the House Oversight Committee did conclude that the autopen was abused, that Biden was unaware of its use, and the Department of Justice should consider declaring the pardons and other acts legally null and void. It also suggested criminal prosecutions should be considered.
The Department of Justice will next determine if Biden’s purported pardons are null and void because of the abuse of the autopen and the absence of accountability. This will take some months to do. In addition to reviewing the House Oversight Committee’s report, the Department of Justice may refer the case to prosecutors who can convene a grand jury to hear additional evidence and consider possible criminal indictments.
In the meantime, many of those who were pardoned are left to consider their fate. The Department of Justice is unlikely to undo pardons for thousands of drug dealers, political donors and local Democrat officials who received pardons. What’s done is done.
But the prospects are different for the big fish, including members of the Biden crime family and highly politicized military officers like General Milley, who told the Chinese Communist Party that he would disobey orders from Trump to use certain weapons at the end of Trump’s first term in office.
The biggest fish of all may be Anthony Fauci, who was responsible for the deaths of millions through his cover-up of the source of the COVID virus. That virus came from a Chinese bioweapons lab in Wuhan, but the research was funded by Fauci after such gain-of-function research became illegal in the United States. Fauci said the virus came from a so-called wet market in Wuhan as a way to hide his own involvement.
Fauci is the greatest medical criminal since the Nazi Doctor Joseph Mengele. People like Fauci who thought they were in the clear may discover that a jail cell is still waiting for them after all.
