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Former President Joe Biden fired back at President Donald Trump and others in the GOP who have claimed his staff’s use of an autopen was done without his knowledge while granting pardons and clemency toward the end of his term.
“They’re liars. They know it,” he said in an interview with The New York Times about Trump and his allies’ claims that he was incapacitated and not privy to the decisions being made while he was serving as president. “They’ve done so badly. They’ve lied so consistently about almost everything they’re doing. The best thing they can do is try to change the focus and focus on something else. And this is a — I think that’s what this is about.”
He added: “I made every single one of those” clemency decisions.
Toward the end of his presidency, Biden issued a record-breaking wave of commutations and pardons. It included commuting hundreds of sentences of individuals in home confinement during the COVID pandemic; pardoning hundreds of individuals convicted of nonviolent crimes, such as drug offenses; and changing the death sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals who were on federal death row to life without parole.
Biden also granted preemptive pardons, including his controversial decision to pardon family, including his son Hunter Biden. “I know how vindictive [Trump] is,” Biden told the Times of his decision to pardon family, adding that if “he went after them” all it would do is “run up legal bills.” He also preemptively issued pardons for Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Of the use of the autopen, Biden told the Times it was used “because there are a lot of them,” referring to the many warrants that needed to be signed.
“The autopen is, you know, is legal. As you know, other presidents used it, including Trump. But the point is that, you know, we’re talking about a whole lot of people,” he said.
The Department of Justice and the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee are investigating Biden’s use of the autopen and allege Biden and his staff were masking his mental decline, claiming it hindered his ability to perform as president.
The House Oversight Committee has so far subpoenaed Biden’s White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, and Anthony Bernal, an aide to former First Lady Jill Biden. Last week, Dr. O’Connor declined to answer questions asked by the oversight panel, citing physician-patient privilege and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
In June, Trump ordered an investigation into “executive actions under Biden’s presidency,” which questions if certain individuals “conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state” and cited his clemency actions and the autopen use.
“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,” Biden said in a statement at the time.
