Latest news with #autopen
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Comer May Drag Biden Before Committee on Cognitive Cover-Up
The GOP-led probe into the alleged 'cover-up' of Joe Biden's cognitive decline may soon ensnare the former president himself. Kentucky Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he would be 'open to' bringing the former president to testify before the committee. On Wednesday's edition of his eponymous show, Hannity, the host expressed doubts about whether it would be worthwhile to interview the president given his cognitive state. 'I would have to argue, probably not,' Hannity said. 'We're going to see who was giving the directive to sign these,' Comer said, referring to Biden's use of an autopen. Comer has alleged that Biden's use of an autopen is evidence of his cognitive decline. 'If everyone says it was Joe Biden, then I'm certainly open to bring him in,' he added. Comer first announced the committee would investigate what he called a 'cover-up' of the president's mental state earlier this month after a flurry of reports alleged Biden had shown signs of cognitive and physical decline both during and before the 2024 presidential campaign. Since beginning the probe, Comer has frequently taken issue with Biden's use of an autopen to sign pardons and other executive documents in the final months of his term. Autopens—machines that recreate signatures on a person's behalf—are not illegal and were used by former President Barack Obama before Biden took office. Comer told Hannity earlier this month that Biden's 'heavy use of the autopen' was evidence the president 'wasn't capable of making decisions.' Beyond Biden himself, Comer said he'd consider interviewing Biden's immediate family, including wife Jill and son Hunter Biden. The committee is currently focused on questioning members of the former president's staff, including the three former staffers and the former director of Biden's Domestic Policy Council. Comer told Hannity that Biden's former chief of staff, Ron Klain, is a 'very good bet' when it comes to who else the committee will tap for questioning. Comer launched the 2025 probe shortly after Axios published an audio clip in which the president appeared to struggle to recall dates and other information while answering questions in a 2023 special counsel interview about classified documents that he'd stored at his private home. However, Comer had expressed interest in investigating Biden's alleged 'cover-up' long before the Axios clip surfaced. In July 2024, just one week before Biden dropped out of the presidential election, Comer subpoenaed three of the president's staffers, whom he alleged had created a 'protective bubble' to conceal his cognitive state from the public. The staffers never testified, and Comer later said the White House had 'obstructed' and 'defied' his subpoenas. He has since requested transcribed statements from them as part of the new probe. After submitting the subpoenas in July, Comer wrote in a press release that 'President Biden is clearly unfit for office, yet his staff are trying to hide the truth from the American people.' The committee has also requested a transcribed statement from Biden's physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor. Comer told Hannity he believed O'Connor was 'definitely not telling the truth about Joe Biden's health.' Because a fellow Republican, Texas Representative Ronny Jackson, previously served as White House physician under presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, Comer says Jackson will advise the committee on questions to ask of O'Connor.
Fox News
3 days ago
- General
- Fox News
Trump says Biden didn't favor his admin's lax border security policy, suggests autopen played a role
President Donald Trump said that he thinks Joe Biden didn't really agree with many of his administration's lax border security policies, instead suggesting those surrounding the former president took advantage of his declining faculties and utilized an autopen feature in the White House to pass radical directives pertaining to the border. The comments came during a press conference from the Oval Office on Friday, during which Trump signaled that investigators are zeroing in on exactly who authorized officials in the White House to sign important documents for Biden using the autopen. "I think the autopen is going to become one of the great scandals of all time because you have somebody operating it, or a number of people operating," Trump told reporters. "I knew Joe Biden, Joe Biden wasn't in favor of opening up borders, letting 21 million people into this from prisons and mental institutions and gang members. He wasn't into that at all. And, you know who signed these? Who signed these orders, proclamations and all of the different things that he signed that said our country so far back?" House Republicans, led by Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, launched an investigation earlier this month aimed at determining whether Biden, who was in declining health during the final months of his presidency, was mentally fit to authorize the use of the auto-pen. Comer said this week he was "open" to dragging Biden before the House to answer questions about the matter if need be. "I understand he signed almost everything with an auto-pen. It's a very dangerous thing. It really means you're not president," Trump added in his comments to reporters Friday. Trump pointed to Biden's legacy as a "sort of a moderate person," to explain his reasoning why he thinks Biden was not in favor of all of his administration's open border policies, adding that "he wasn't a person that would allow a murderers to come into our country." "I don't believe it was Joe Biden, I really don't," Trump reiterated. "He wasn't a person that was in favor of transgender for anybody that wanted it, to take kids out of families, etc., etc." A new book, an audio transcript of Biden's special counsel testimony, and a shocking cancer diagnosis have all renewed focus on how Biden's cognitive decline may have been worse than the public was aware. Last week, Comer sent out letters to five of the former president's closest confidants, including his former doctor in the White House, seeking further answers about Biden's cognitive health while in office. All five have made contact with the Oversight Committee, but Comer has threatened subpoena power if they refuse to testify. "Look, I would love to ask Joe Biden a lot of questions, but right now, we're starting with the staffers who were operating the auto-pen," Comer said, according to the New York Post. "We're going to bring the physician, Dr. O'Connor, in, because he definitely was not telling the truth about Joe Biden's health."
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Trump aide accuses Sen. Warren of controlling Biden's autopen
A top Donald Trump aide has accused Senator Elizabeth Warren of controlling Joe Biden 's autopen. 'Elizabeth Warren controlled the autopen during that administration,' David Sacks, the White House's AI czar, said on Jesse Watters Primetime on Tuesday. An autopen is a device which automatically replicates a person's signature. He went on to say that Warren, 75, had a 'pathological hatred of the crypto community' and wanted to 'drive this community offshore.' The two men were discussing cryptocurrency in the United States when Sacks made the comment regarding Warren. Sacks did not provide context as to why he believed Warren was behind the autopen. has reached out to Warren's office for comment. Trump had recently said he wants to make the US the 'crypto capital of the world.' However, conservative politicians, including Trump, have recently zoned in on Biden's alleged over usage of an autopen machine. The Republican leader has declared that his predecessor's pardons for the January 6 Committee are 'void' because he believes Biden used an autopen to sign them. In one of his final acts as president, Biden pardoned several members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to protect against potential 'revenge' by Trump. Trump bragged that he always signs executive orders and other official documents by hand. However, many have speculated that Trump used the same method to sign the majority of the 1,500 January 6 pardons he signed for rioters on his first day in office . The obsession with the autopen - which has been used by many presidents, including Barack Obama - came after the conservative Oversight Project revealed that Biden frequently used it. 'Crooked Joe Biden got us into a real mess with Russia and everything else he did, frankly. But he didn't know about it and he, generally speaking, signed it with autopen, so how would he know that autopen is a big deal,' Trump said in a speech at the Department of Justice on Friday. 'When my people come up,' to have him sign an executive order, Trump said 'you don't use autopen.' 'Number one – it's disrespectful to the office,' he claimed. 'Number two – maybe it's not even valid because who's getting him to sign? He had no idea what the hell he was doing.' Trump, 78, was at Main Justice on March 9 to deliver remarks on the fentanyl epidemic and southern border crisis. But the speech quickly turned into a victory lap, where he rubbed the noses of his adversaries into the fact that he won in 2024 and is now back in charge of the country despite efforts to derail his attempts for a second term. Biden, who at 82 years old is four years Trump's senior, was lambasted toward the end of his presidency and during the 2024 campaign for his mental and physical decline. Pro-MAGA figures and supporters often questioned on social media who was 'controlling' or 'pulling the strings' behind the scenes as they insisted there was no way that Biden was running the show at the White House. 'WHOEVER CONTROLLED THE AUTOPEN CONTROLLED THE PRESIDENCY,' the Oversight Project, created buy the Heritage Foundation, wrote in a post on X on Thursday. 'We gathered every document we could find with Biden's signature over the course of his presidency. All used the same autopen signature except for the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the race last year,' the group added. The project shared two examples from documents it claims showed the use of the autopen. This includes a document from August 2022 as well as one from December 2024. It appears that the signatures are identical in the two examples. The Oversight Project also posted an image of Biden's signature in comparison from when he announced he was dropping out of the race in July. That image shows a variation from the other shared documents. examined more than 25 Biden executive orders documented in the Federal Register's office between 2021 and 2025. It found the same signature on each. A separate examination of 25 Trump signatures on orders on the Federal Register's website from his first and second administrations also found the signatures were all the same. The National Archives, however, told fact-checking site Snopes that the 'White House sends a sample of the President's signature to the Office of the Federal Register' at the beginning of every administration. It uses it to 'create the graphic image for all Presidential Documents published in the Federal Register.' The signatures that appear on the Federal Register's website do not reflect the signatures that appear on the original documents. The use of an autopen allows for a mechanical device to sign documents rather than an individual taking pen to paper or transmitting an original e-signature. It has been used by presidents and lawmakers for decades. The first president to use a version of an autopen was Thomas Jefferson. The third US president began using it 1804 and called it the 'finest invention of the present age,' according to the National Museum of American History. The modern version of the machine was first used by Harry Truman, the US' 33rd president. The first president photographed using it was 36th President Lyndon B. Johnson, Snopes reported. However, President Obama was the first president to use it to sign legislation. He used it to sign a four-year extension of the Patriot Act while he was traveling abroad in France. Republicans called for him to resign the document in his own hand.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Top Trump admin official reveals the extremist Democrat who controlled Biden's autopen
A top Donald Trump aide has accused Senator Elizabeth Warren of controlling Joe Biden 's autopen. 'Elizabeth Warren controlled the autopen during that administration,' David Sacks, the White House 's AI czar, said on Jesse Watters Primetime on Tuesday. An autopen is a device which automatically replicates a person's signature. He went on to say that Warren, 75, had a 'pathological hatred of the crypto community' and wanted to 'drive this community offshore.' The two men were discussing cryptocurrency in the United States when Sacks made the comment regarding Warren. Sacks did not provide context as to why he believed Warren was behind the autopen. has reached out to Warren's office for comment. Trump had recently said he wants to make the US the 'crypto capital of the world.' However, conservative politicians, including Trump, have recently zoned in on Biden's alleged over usage of an autopen machine. The Republican leader has declared that his predecessor's pardons for the January 6 Committee are 'void' because he believes Biden used an autopen to sign them. In one of his final acts as president, Biden pardoned several members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to protect against potential 'revenge' by Trump. Trump bragged that he always signs executive orders and other official documents by hand. However, many have speculated that Trump used the same method to sign the majority of the 1,500 January 6 pardons he signed for rioters on his first day in office. The obsession with the autopen - which has been used by many presidents, including Barack Obama - came after the conservative Oversight Project revealed that Biden frequently used it. 'Crooked Joe Biden got us into a real mess with Russia and everything else he did, frankly. But he didn't know about it and he, generally speaking, signed it with autopen, so how would he know that autopen is a big deal,' Trump said in a speech at the Department of Justice on Friday. 'When my people come up,' to have him sign an executive order, Trump said 'you don't use autopen.' 'Number one – it's disrespectful to the office,' he claimed. 'Number two – maybe it's not even valid because who's getting him to sign? He had no idea what the hell he was doing.' The first president to use a version of an autopen was Thomas Jefferson. The third US president began using it 1804 and called it the 'finest invention of the present age.' The modern version was first used by Harry Truman. Obama was the first to use it to sign legislation Trump, 78, was at Main Justice on March 9 to deliver remarks on the fentanyl epidemic and southern border crisis. But the speech quickly turned into a victory lap, where he rubbed the noses of his adversaries into the fact that he won in 2024 and is now back in charge of the country despite efforts to derail his attempts for a second term. Biden, who at 82 years old is four years Trump's senior, was lambasted toward the end of his presidency and during the 2024 campaign for his mental and physical decline. Pro-MAGA figures and supporters often questioned on social media who was 'controlling' or 'pulling the strings' behind the scenes as they insisted there was no way that Biden was running the show at the White House. 'WHOEVER CONTROLLED THE AUTOPEN CONTROLLED THE PRESIDENCY,' the Oversight Project, created buy the Heritage Foundation, wrote in a post on X on Thursday. 'We gathered every document we could find with Biden's signature over the course of his presidency. All used the same autopen signature except for the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the race last year,' the group added. The project shared two examples from documents it claims showed the use of the autopen. This includes a document from August 2022 as well as one from December 2024. It appears that the signatures are identical in the two examples. The Oversight Project also posted an image of Biden's signature in comparison from when he announced he was dropping out of the race in July. That image shows a variation from the other shared documents. Trump bragged that he always signs executive orders and other official documents by hand. However, many have speculated that Trump used the same method to sign the majority of the 1,500 January 6 pardons he signed for rioters on his first day in office examined more than 25 Biden executive orders documented in the Federal Register's office between 2021 and 2025. It found the same signature on each. A separate examination of 25 Trump signatures on orders on the Federal Register's website from his first and second administrations also found the signatures were all the same. The National Archives, however, told fact-checking site Snopes that the 'White House sends a sample of the President's signature to the Office of the Federal Register' at the beginning of every administration. It uses it to 'create the graphic image for all Presidential Documents published in the Federal Register.' The signatures the appear on the Federal Register's website do not reflect the signatures that appear on the original documents. The use of an autopen allows for a mechanical device to sign documents rather than an individual taking pen to paper or transmitting an original e-signature. It has been used by presidents and lawmakers for decades. The first president to use a version of an autopen was Thomas Jefferson. The third US president began using it 1804 and called it the 'finest invention of the present age,' according to the National Museum of American History. The modern version of the machine was first used by Harry Truman, the US' 33rd president. The first president photographed using it was 36th President Lyndon B. Johnson, Snopes reported. However, President Obama was the first president to use it to sign legislation. He used it to sign a four-year extension of the Patriot Act while he was traveling abroad in France. Republicans called for him to resign the document in his own hand.
Fox News
6 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
Watchdog finds 'no evidence' Biden knew of crucial climate EOs, demands answers on who signed autopen
Print Close By Andrew Miller Published May 28, 2025 FIRST ON FOX: A pro-energy group is renewing its call for an investigation into over half a dozen Biden administration executive actions related to climate that it believes should be deemed null and void due to them being signed by an autopen without any public comment from former President Joe Biden confirming his knowledge of them. Power the Future, a nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs, reviewed eight Biden executive orders that it says were significant shifts in domestic energy policy and said it found no evidence of the president speaking about any of them publicly, raising concerns that the orders were signed by autopen and that he was not aware of them. "These are not obscure bureaucratic memos; these were foundational shifts in American energy policy, yet not once did Joe Biden speak about them publicly," Daniel Turner, founder and executive director of Power The Future, told Fox News Digital. The executive orders reviewed by Power the Future include an Arctic drilling ban in 2023, a 2021 executive order committing the federal government to net-zero emissions by 2050, an executive order mandating "clean energy" AI centers and an offshore drilling ban executive order shortly before leaving office in 2025. PRO-ENERGY GROUP URGES AG BONDI TO PROBE BIDEN'S AUTOPEN ON CRUCIAL DECISIONS THAT DEVASTATED INDUSTRY Finding no evidence of Biden publicly speaking about the executive orders on climate, Power the Future sent letters this week to the DOJ, EPA, DOI, DOE, along with the House and Senate Oversight Committees, calling for an investigation to determine who made the decisions, drafted the executive orders and ultimately signed them. "In light of the growing evidence that actions purportedly taken by the former president may not have been approved or signed by him, but instead promulgated by a small coterie of advisers in his name without his knowledge or over his signature using an 'autopen,' the need for congressional access to information has grown in importance with these revelations," the letter to GOP House Oversight Chair James Comer states. "Congress deserves to know how or whether these executive actions were authorized, and whether the former President was aware of such orders before they were implemented by the federal bureaucracy. Were these actions taken on behalf of the president and purporting to execute his authority undertaken with the president's knowledge and approach? It appears incumbent upon Congress to inquire, about all parties involved in these actions, who instructed them to do what, when." WHAT IS AN AUTOPEN? THE SIGNING DEVICE AT THE HEART OF TRUMP'S ATTACKS ON BIDEN PARDONS Fox News Digital reached out to Biden's office for comment but did not hear back by press time. The presidential autopen has been a topic of conversation with Republicans in recent weeks and months as questions continue about Biden's mental acuity during his presidency, particularly the last few years, which have faced increased scrutiny after the release of Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's book "Original Sin." "Power The Future remains concerned that key policies of major economic and national security significance directed by the White House during the Biden administration may have been undertaken without presidential awareness and approval, but perhaps instead by a small coterie of staff," the letter states. "Although this likelihood has become more apparent by claims made in a recent book titled Original Sin, those claims merely support information that had already emerged." An autopen is a device that physically holds a pen and is programmed to replicate a person's signature. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel determined in 2005 that the president is permitted to use an autopen to sign bills into law, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued a ruling in February that said the absence of "a writing does not equate to proof that a commutation did not occur." In March, President Donald Trump claimed that Biden's pardons of lawmakers who served on the House Select Committee to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, and others, are "VOID," alleging that they had been signed via an autopen and that Biden did not even know about them. DAVID MARCUS: OLD MAN BIDEN'S AUTOPEN PARDONS SHOULD BE NULL AND VOID Despite Trump's concerns over the validity of Biden's pardons due to the alleged use of an autopen, constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital that the odds of successfully legally challenging them in court are "vanishingly low." "Presidents are allowed to use the autopen, and courts will not presume a dead-hand conspiracy," Turley said. Power the Future's letter references House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who in January shared that Biden, during a meeting, appeared to forget that he signed an order to pause LNG exports. A report published by an arm of the Heritage Foundation claimed that the majority of official documents signed by Biden were allegedly an autopen signature. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "During the Biden administration, hundreds of billions of dollars were funneled towards pet green projects, while the American fossil fuels industry was punished, and there is no evidence that Biden ordered it, directed it, or was even aware it was happening in his name," Turner told Fox News Digital, adding that the American people "deserve to know" who was signing the executive orders "behind closed doors." "This autopen scandal is evidence that these green EOs are invalid, and the instigators should be thoroughly investigated by the DOJ for violating the trust of the American people and perpetuating a great fraud on the nation." Fox News Digital's Diana Stancy contributed to this report. Print Close URL
