House Oversight Declares Biden Autopen Pardons “Void,” Demands DOJ Probe into Unauthorized Executive Actions
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has officially ruled that a number of executive actions and pardons issued during Joe Biden’s presidency — many allegedly signed through an autopen rather than by Biden himself — are invalid. The committee is calling on the Department of Justice to launch a full investigation into what it describes as one of the most serious breaches of presidential authority in American history.
In a detailed report titled “The Biden Autopen Presidency: Decline, Delusion, and Deception in the White House,” the panel lays out what it calls “substantial evidence” that top White House staff concealed the former president’s deteriorating mental and physical state, even as they continued to issue executive orders and pardons without his direct authorization.
According to the committee’s press release, “President Biden’s condition deteriorated, his aides exercised presidential authority and facilitated executive actions without his direct authorization, including misusing the autopen and failing to properly document decision-making processes.”
Comer: “One of the Biggest Political Scandals in U.S. History”
House Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) sent a formal letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding an investigation into three key Biden insiders — Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Annie Tomasini, and Anthony Bernal — who have refused to answer the committee’s questions about what it calls a coordinated cover-up of the president’s incapacitation.
“The Biden Autopen Presidency will go down as one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history. As Americans saw President Biden’s decline with their own eyes, Biden’s inner circle sought to deceive the public, cover up his decline, and took unauthorized executive actions with the autopen that are now invalid,” Comer said.
“Our report reveals how key aides colluded to mislead the public and the extraordinary measures they took to sustain the appearance of presidential authority as Biden’s capacity to function independently diminished. Executive actions performed by Biden White House staff and signed by autopen are null and void.”
“We have provided Americans with transparency about the Biden Autopen Presidency, and now there must be accountability.”
Findings: Mental Decline, Concealment, and Unauthorized Authority
The committee’s findings portray a presidency increasingly controlled by unelected aides. It concluded that “senior White House officials actively sought to conceal” Biden’s cognitive and physical deterioration while exploiting a “lax chain-of-command” that allowed staffers to use the autopen for key executive actions without documentation or proof of presidential consent.
According to the report, the Biden team took extreme steps to maintain appearances — from dictating the former president’s wardrobe and schedule to limiting his public engagements and scripting even small, informal appearances with teleprompters. Hollywood consultants were allegedly brought in to “stage-manage” major events such as the State of the Union.
“The Committee has found that there was, in fact, a cover-up of the president’s cognitive decline and that there is no record demonstrating President Biden himself made all of the executive decisions that were attributed to him,” the report said.
Pardons Under Question
The report zeroed in on a particularly troubling episode: the January 19, 2025, pardons granted to Biden family members and political allies. The committee says the process was so irregular that it undermines the legitimacy of every pardon issued under Biden.
The report states that an aide to former White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, Rosa Po, received a second-hand verbal authorization from Zients at home, who in turn approved the use of the autopen for the pardons. Zients allegedly “did not even know who actually used the autopen” to apply Biden’s signature.
“Zients did so without confirming with President Biden that he had, in fact, granted these pardons after repeatedly telling the American people he would not pardon his son, Hunter, let alone the five other members of the Biden family in the waning hours of his presidency. Po subsequently sent an email on Zients’s behalf stating ‘I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons. Thanks, JZ,’” the report continued.
The committee concluded that, “In light of the former president’s cognitive deterioration and the cover-up from his inner circle, this ‘approval’ process calls into question the validity of all pardons reportedly granted by President Biden throughout his tenure. The Committee deems void all executive actions signed by the autopen without proper, corresponding, contemporaneous, written approval traceable to the president’s own consent.”
As the findings reverberate across Washington, the pressure now falls on the Justice Department to determine whether these unauthorized acts rise to the level of criminal misconduct.