Hinting at "the Highest Level of Investigation" and Political Retaliation
U.S. President Donald Trump claimed on the 17th (local time) that former President Joe Biden's pardons of current and former members of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot are invalid because they were signed using an autopen.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social that day, President Trump stated, "Sleepy Joe Biden's pardons to the political thugs of the committee and many others are no longer effective because they were done with an autopen."
President Trump said, "The necessary pardon documents were either not explained to Biden or not approved by him. He knew nothing about it, and those who knew may have committed a crime," adding, "The people on the committee who deleted and destroyed all the evidence obtained during a two-year witch hunt against many innocent people, including myself, should know they can be subject to the highest level of investigation."
Former President Biden issued a large number of pardons at the end of his term to current and former lawmakers, including Liz Cheney, who participated in the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 incident. They had been investigating Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol in defiance of the 2020 election results and Trump's incitement. During the election campaign, President Trump hinted at political retaliation against them, saying that former Representative Cheney should "go to jail." He also preemptively pardoned former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, both of whom he mentioned in the context of retaliation.
President Trump's remarks that day argued that Biden's pardons are invalid because the president did not sign them personally but used a machine.
Previously, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank behind the so-called 'Project 2025,' a blueprint for a second Trump administration, raised concerns about the autopen issue. The foundation claimed that during Biden's presidency, his name was entered via autopen on important anti-Trump documents. Some conservative media outlets, including the New York Post, have suggested that some officials in the Biden administration, amid concerns about his age, may have used autopen signatures without the president's knowledge.
However, Bloomberg News reported that the effectiveness of presidential pardons is not dependent on whether they are signed personally. Last year, a federal appeals court ruled that pardons do not necessarily have to be in written form. The U.S. Department of Justice stated that there are no constitutional or statutory regulations on how administrative pardons are executed or evidenced, dating back to 1929.
Former President Barack Obama also used an autopen machine to sign legislation in 2011.
According to the New York Times (NYT), after posting on social media that day, when asked whether he had ever used an autopen on Air Force One, President Trump replied, "For example, it could be used to send a letter to a young person," adding, "But the pardons and everything he signed with the autopen are disgraceful." When asked if all other documents signed by former President Biden using the autopen are also invalid, he said, "That is not for me to decide," adding, "That is up to the courts. But since Biden probably did not know this was happening, I would say it is invalid."
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