Former President Joe Biden and his allies defended his use of an autopen during his presidency, but the practice largely drew scrutiny.
Biden confirmed to the New York Times in July that he authorized the autopen. He said he used the machine, which allows someone to duplicate the signature of the commander in chief on a document, due to the large number of clemencies he granted.
The former president set a record for the most presidential pardons, commutations, and clemencies, which he granted to more than 4,200 people. These sweeping pardons included commuting the death sentences of 37 federal inmates.
Biden allies
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) appeared on CNN’s News Central shortly after Biden’s comments were published to confirm that he had read the article. However, he said he interpreted it differently from his Republican colleagues in the House.
“My understanding is that President Biden did look at these pardons, whether or not they came in classes of pardons — like these are people being pardoned because they had mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug offenses, and he didn’t think that that was appropriate, that they’d served their time well — as opposed to each individual one,” Van Hollen said.
“I will have to take a look at that entire issue,” he added.
Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also faced pushback, even from ardent Biden supporters. While interviewing Jean-Pierre back in October, late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert described Biden during the time of his 2024 presidential debate as a “dramatically different person” from how he was earlier in his campaign.
Jean-Pierre admitted Biden had “aged,” which affected his debate performance with President Donald Trump. However, she stopped short of saying Biden’s age changed his ability to agree to using an autopen.
Biden critics
In a statement released to the Washington Examiner, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said, “New reporting confirms Biden White House staff took executive action without the President’s approval. The House Oversight Committee will continue pursuing answers about this historic scandal to prevent such an abuse from happening again.”
“@GOPoversight will continue pursuing answers about this historic scandal to prevent such an abuse from happening again,” Comer wrote on X in July.
Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) responded to Comer’s post, asking, “Who was really in charge for the past four years?”
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey commented on the news, as two of the federal inmates who avoided the death penalty were originally sentenced in his state.
“In March, I questioned the legal honesty of Biden’s clemency given his cognitive decline,” he wrote in a since-deleted post on X. “Now, by his own admission, his pardons have no legal validity.”
In August, Bailey deleted his original X account, which included his title of attorney general in the username, as he resigned and joined the FBI. Then, he opted to start posting under a username that simply included his name and state.
The latest
The subsequent House Oversight Committee subpoenaed former White House chief of staff Jeff Zients in its investigation of Biden’s autopen use. During a closed-door interview, Zients said Biden’s “decision-making slowed” during the final phase of his presidency. Zients was one of over a dozen Biden administration officials to be swept up in the investigation.
Jean-Pierre defended Biden’s “competency” during her five-hour testimony to the committee.
Biden referred to the House Oversight Committee investigation as “crazy,” and said all Republican lawmakers who questioned his cognitive decline were “liars.”
In October, while the government was still shut down, the Oversight Committee released its report on its investigation into Biden’s use of autopen.
TRUMP WHITE HOUSE SWAPS BIDEN FOR AUTOPEN IN NEW PRESIDENTIAL WALK OF FAME
Trump announced that he would terminate all of Biden’s orders signed by autopen. According to Trump’s announcement, this applied to nearly 92% of the former president’s orders over four years.
Biden finished his time in office with an all-time low approval rating of 35.6%, according to FiveThirtyEight‘s analysis of polls.