House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) has questioned all of Biden’s clemencies, pardons, and executive orders following the former president’s admission that he might not have been in control of all the decisions.
While Biden claimed that he made “every decision,” He told the New York Times that he “orally granted all the pardons and commutations issued at the end of his term.” However, he did not approve each name, and the list was changed afterwards, but he did not sign off on the changes.
In late June, former Biden advisor Neera Tanden admitted to controlling the autopen without knowing who had approved its use. It was later established that the House staff secretary, Ms. Stefanie Feldman, processed the pardons and clemencies issued via the autopen.
While Biden orally gave orders and established the criteria for pardoning inmates, and Feldman relied on these oral orders, specific information regarding the inmates kept changing, therby changing the list. It appears than anyone could be put on or off the list without Biden’s approval, raising questions about the entire process.
Additionally, officials who wrote the communiques that Feldman relied on to authenticate Biden’s oral orders were not in the room when the Biden approved the pardons.
“I think it would be a hard pitch in front of a court of law to try to defend what Joe Biden just admitted to The New York Times — that he didn’t know exactly who all was getting pardons or not,” Comer told Hannity. “He didn’t know who was being pardoned with the use of his autopen, and that’s the whole basis of this investigation.”
Comer also called into question Biden’s executive orders, which may have been approved through this same process. In early 2024, House Speaker Mike Johnson confronted Biden over the freezing of liquid natural gas (LNG) exports to Europe amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, Biden could not recall signing the executive order, just weeks after the exports were halted.
“Why would you do that? Cause you understand we just talked about Ukraine, you understand you are fueling Vladimir Putin’s war machine, because they gotta get their gas from him,” Johnson said, according to the New York Post.
“I didn’t do that,” Biden replied. Johnson said he believed the former president “genuinely didn’t know what he had signed.”
“This is just the pardons,” Comer added. “What about the executive orders? I mean, there was no process that we have found thus far.”
The House Oversight Chair said ongoing interviews had so far failed to establish a clear process for authorizing the use of the autopen.
“We’ve brought in four people in our interviews and depositions — no defined process by which Joe Biden was the one saying, ‘Yes, use this autopen to sign my name on this pardon or this executive order,’” Comer said.
The Republican lawmaker also questioned whether the former President was even mentally capable of understanding what he was signing.
“We’re just talking about signing your name — one signature,” he added. “It doesn’t even take into account whether or not he was mentally able to understand what he was even signing.”
According to Rep. Comer, these unanswered questions raise serious concerns about all the pardons that Biden issued at the end of his presidency.
“This is bad, and I think this puts all of those pardons in peril from the Biden administration,” he concluded.
