Questions surrounding Joe Biden’s cognitive health and his ability to perform the duties of the president of the United States continue to be raised even months after he left office. As America watched the clear cognitive decline of Biden throughout his presidency, many wondered who was actually running the White House.
To that point, Thursday’s AM Update took a closer look at the former president’s frequent use of the autopen after a bombshell report by the nonprofit government watchdog group, The Oversight Project, found the vast majority of White House documents with Biden’s signature were signed by the mechanical device used to replicate a signature.
The Investigation
AM Update spoke to the president of The Oversight Project, Mike Howell, about his investigation and what it reveals about who was actually running the country. “We, like the rest of the country, were completely aware of the fact that President Biden was not functioning and not running the White House,” he explained. “And we were trying to look into the ways that they could run a White House without a functioning president. And we basically centered on how are they signing things, how is the paper moving, as one of the ways.”
Howell said the group began examining signatures and saw a pattern emerge that made it “very clear that there was copy and paste signature and autopen device.” That is when his team decided to look at the usage over time.
“We basically have found that there are at least three – and there is a fourth one that we have found that we are working up now – versions of the signature that were used for various types of documents to include executive orders, pardons, proclamations,” Howell noted. “And the usage of it picked up over time, particularly in like weird scenarios in which Biden was actually in D.C. and able to sign other things.”
Irregular Processes
Multiple investigations were launched in the wake of The Oversight Project’s findings, including President Donald Trump ordering the Department of Justice to launch a probe last month.
The House Oversight Committee started an investigation of its own and summoned former Biden Staff Secretary Neera Tanden to Capitol Hill for more than five hours of closed-door testimony last week. Chairman James Comer (R-KY) later revealed that Tanden testified she had minimal interaction with President Biden, which Howell said is highly unusual given her role.
“It is a very important job. It is the person who controls the paper flow from the president and keeps things at the White House legal and organized. Traditionally, you know, a very, very senior staffer,” he explained. “It was her job to basically to ensure that the paper moves in accordance with policy procedure and is legally sufficient… When you have White House senior staff that is basically not interacting with the president, but is in charge of deploying his signature and his binding authority on documents, it’s a major, major break in past precedent and procedure.”
That is why, Howell said, it makes no sense that someone who doesn’t speak to the president often to know if he actually approves the things that he is putting his name to would be in the position. “She was taking orders via paper decision memos that went up to senior staffers, then came back to her, and so the chain of commands was broken in that regard,” he added. “The signature was being applied without the person applying it knowing that the president actually signed off on it.”
In Howell’s view, Tandon’s testimony raises questions about whether President Biden knew what he was signing off on. “She also spoke to a really irregular process, in which written decision memos would go up the chain of command from her and then would come back with just an initial saying it’s good to go,” he said. “And that raises another major question. Is the decision memo the actual text of the executive order or is it something different?”
“One fact pattern that we could be dealing with is a descriptive memo goes up to the president saying something to the effect of, ‘We’re going to do a bunch of executive orders. They will undo Trump’s inhumane policies and they will make everything sunshine and roses on the border. Everybody loves it. This is going to make you a hero,'” Howell explained. “And then the executive orders that come out are these really prescriptive and destructive executive orders to undo every last aspect of border security. It could be something that is way out of line with the presidential intent and dissent… And that’s what I’m looking to see: Is there a mismatch there?”
Possible Crimes
Howell said it is “likely” actual crimes were committed in relation to the use of the autopen, which is what his team is now zeroing in on. “Those would include impersonation. You can’t impersonate a federal official. You can’t forge a signature. There could be forgery. I think there is a lot of bribery at play,” he shared. “Also, secondary to that, the people who were aware that this scheme was underway and that they were functioning the White House out of the constitutional order and with all these other crimes that I’ve mentioned potentially happening could be guilty of misprision of a felony, which is basically like a failure to report.”
In June, the Biden office released a statement attributed to Biden pushing back on the allegations: “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.”
But for now, the various investigations remain ongoing.
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