Is Biden’s autopen mightier than the sword?

Whom do you suppose wrote this: “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false”? 

The one person I can assure you did not write it is its supposed author, former president Joseph R. Biden, who by the way is suffering from metastatic prostate cancer. 

Moreover, pace Biden’s suggestions, it is clear that he did not sign many of the myriad “pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations” issued over his name.  

As I note in another Speccie piece, on January 17 of this year, 2,490 pardons and commutations were issued over Biden’s name, more than any prior president had granted in the course of his entire presidency. Who decided to issue that wholesale clemency? And who signed the documents ratifying the decision?  

“The issue,” former House speaker Newt Gingrich wrote on X, “is not President Biden, who was clearly cognitively incapable of these acts. The issue is who was doing them and what did they get for doing them?” 

Gingrich is right. We do not yet know the answers to those two questions, but we might soon. Yesterday, President Trump issued a memorandum directing the Attorney General and White House Counsel to investigate “whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President.” 

Among other subjects, the memorandum directs the President’s legal team to investigate “the circumstances surrounding Biden’s supposed execution of numerous executive actions during his final years in office.” Of particular interest: what policy documents – clemency grants, executive orders, presidential memoranda, et cetera – were signed by an auto pen? And the biggie – “who directed that the President’s signature be affixed?” 

The propaganda press is making a tired effort to suggest that this is just Trump going after poor Joe Biden, who is suffering from cancer, you know. As part of this campaign, several outlets are asserting that using an autopen for official presidential documents is just fine. CNN, for example, says that it is “well-settled legal understanding” that “president doesn’t have to physically sign his signature to a bill for it to have the power of law.”  

But CNN is wrong. The governing bit of the Constitution is Article 1, § 7, clause 2.13. In brief, “It is Unconstitutional for Someone or Something to Sign a Bill Outside of the President’s Presence.”

The real question is what sort of practical results this investigation will yield.

We all remember the saga Hillary Clinton, her home-brew server and the 30,000 missing emails which dealt with yoga routines and her daughter’s wedding plans, honest. Clinton, too, was investigated. Nothing happened.  

If you care about the rule of law, you will be encouraged by Trump’s robust memorandum and by the activities of House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who is also on the case. We’ll know soon enough if the Case of the Autopen is just business as usual or, as some of us hope, it presages the return of accountability.