The White House has started an investigation into how President Joe Biden used an autopen—a device that copies a person’s signature—to sign off on pardons and reduced sentences during his time in office.
This probe will be carried out by the White House counsel’s office, which handles legal matters for the president.
According to a senior government official, the investigation could involve going through up to one million documents.
This comes as Republican lawmakers in the House, who support former President Donald Trump, are preparing their own investigation into Biden’s use of the autopen for major decisions like pardons and commutations.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has already subpoenaed former Biden staff members as part of his investigation. The U.S. Justice Department is also conducting a separate inquiry.
Donald Trump has criticized Biden over this issue, suggesting that Biden wasn’t mentally fit to make these decisions and that many of his actions may not be valid.
In an interview with The New York Times, Biden explained that he made all the decisions himself—even though an autopen was used to sign the documents.
“I made every decision,” Biden said. The newspaper also found internal emails showing that senior aides met with Biden before sending out official communications to document what happened.
During his time in office, Biden reduced the prison sentences of about 4,000 federal inmates and gave early pardons to some Trump critics, including General Mark Milley and members of the January 6 committee.
Biden defended his choices, saying he knew Trump would react this way. “I consciously made all those decisions,” he said.
However, Trump keeps insisting Biden had no idea what he was doing, calling him mentally unfit to be president.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump told reporters, “The autopen is maybe one of the biggest scandals in the last 50 to 100 years. I guarantee you he didn’t know what he was signing.”
Some of the pardons Biden signed—especially in his final hours as president—had already been discussed in the media before they happened.
This White House investigation comes shortly after Biden’s former doctor, Kevin O’Connor, refused to answer questions during a congressional hearing, using his Fifth Amendment right to stay silent.
James Comer criticized the move, saying that most people only plead the Fifth when they might be hiding something criminal.
Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Biden was the “worst, most incompetent, and senile president” in U.S. history. She accused him of giving power to unelected staff who used the autopen to make poor decisions.
She added that the White House is now focused on finding out how decisions were really made behind the scenes.
Biden, who is 82 and currently dealing with prostate cancer while writing a memoir, said he used the autopen because there were simply too many pardons for him to sign by hand.
“There were a lot of people involved,” he said.
