President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered a broad investigation into whether Joe Biden covered up a cognitive decline while in the White House and was incapable of executing presidential decisions — an unprecedented request that in theory could undermine thousands of Biden’s executive actions and pardons.
The order focused in part on whether Biden’s use of the autopen — a machine that uses real ink to duplicate a human signature — on executive actions was legitimate, or whether his aides used it to hide a president who was not cognitively capable of signing them himself.
Presidents have long used autopens to sign executive orders, and Trump has said that he also has used it for routine correspondence. Trump’s assertion that Biden’s use of the autopen may be problematic appears to conflict with guidance issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2005, which determined that a president does not need to personally sign his signature on an official document for it to be considered valid.
Trump took particular aim in his executive order at the pardons that Biden issued in the final days of his presidency, including when he commuted the death sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row. Those defendants are still serving life sentences.
“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 wrote in his executive order. “This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history. The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.”
Trump and his aides have increasingly focused on Biden’s cognitive state and decision-making, partly by capitalizing on the recent book “Original Sin” by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson of Axios, which details efforts by White House aides to minimize attention on their boss’ age and mental acuity.
Biden, who was recently diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer, declined noticeably during his term as president and dropped his bid for reelection after a stumbling and incoherent debate performance against Trump last June. But he and his aides have rejected claims that he was not competent while in the White House
“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,” Biden said in a statement late Wednesday. “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
