Comer Laying Down the Auto-Pen Pardon Testimony Law

The auto-pen thing is gaining some traction all of a sudden instead of simply being folks bitching on X and talking heads ranting on TV at night.

Representative James Comer, head of the House Oversight Committee, has sent letters to five more of Joe Biden’s top aides requesting their presence before his committee.

Comer’s already in talks about appearances with a prominent handful of former staffers.

A Republican congressman is broadening an investigation into the extent of former President Joe Biden’s physical and mental decline while in office, seeking testimony from some of Biden’s closest advisers, including his first chief of staff. 

GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, chairman of the House Oversight committee, sent letters to five of the former president’s closest aides on Wednesday, requesting they answer questions about Biden’s “mental and physical faculties” while he was leading the country. 

The aides include Biden’s former chief of staff, Ron Klain, as well as members of his inner circle — advisers Michael Donilon, Bruce Reed, Steve Richetti, and Anita Dunn. They have not responded to a request for comment.

A spokesperson told CBS News the committee is already in discussions with four other former White House aides — Anthony Bernal, Annie Tomasini, Ashley Williams, and Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor — to provide testimony.

I heard Comer on Fox today while I was running some errands, and he said he was most interested in the period of Biden’s presidency post-debate, especially the last 100 days. It seemed during that time that pardons and executive orders were flying out of the White House willy-nilly, even as POTATUS himself – and his manipulative, social climbing Jillzilla – spent most of his time in Delaware.

Comer wants to know when exactly Biden was dictating and signing all of these official documents, and, if he wasn’t, who was? At the very least, who supposedly was briefing an obviously mentally incapacitated chief executive and allowing such things to be signed in his name as if he’d understood and agreed when clearly he hadn’t the faculties to do so.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) says former President Joe Biden’s executive orders could be ‘thrown out’ if they were signed via the autopen without his knowledge.

MORE: https://t.co/WEMAc6Jcmw pic.twitter.com/5G4XnRZOpZ

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) June 1, 2025

I also heard Peter Doocy today describe his moment at a White House press briefing where he ‘brought receipts,’ as they say, and quizzed Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt about them.

What Doocy had in his hand were three pardons ‘signed’ by Joe Biden, which had pristine signatures that were exactly the same, with no variances. The fourth pardon he held was Hunter Biden’s, and the nearly illegible scrawl across the bottom of it bore no resemblance to those on the other pardons.

Doocy asked Leavitt if the White House thought the real Biden signature was the one that would hold up under scrutiny and that pardon would stand.

I did manage to find the clip when I got home.

NBC White House correspondent Kelly O’Donnell, sitting next to him, looks a little green around the gills as the paperwork comes out.

…“Is this White House of the opinion that the only pardon that would count is one that the president signed himself?” Doocy asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who, like President Donald Trump, has pushed unsubstantiated theories that some of Biden’s executive actions are invalid because of alleged autopen use.

An autopen is a machine used to mechanically and automatically sign documents, a longstanding practice in the White House. Trump, however, has argued that Biden used an autopen for his preemptive pardons of potential Trump political targets like Fauci and Biden family members, and that they are therefore void. It is not confirmed whether Biden used an autopen to sign the pardons, and legal experts say there is no legal mechanism to rescind them anyway.

Regardless, Doocy all but said at the briefing that Biden did not physically sign the last pardons.

I think it’s great that Comer is talking tough about the expanding list of witnesses and accelerated investigation. He’s determined to find out who was running the country.

…“The cover-up of President Biden’s mental decline is one of the greatest scandals in our nation’s history. These five former senior advisers were eyewitnesses to President Biden’s condition and operations within the Biden White House. They must appear before the House Oversight Committee and provide truthful answers about President Biden’s cognitive state and who was calling the shots,” Mr. Comer, Kentucky Republican, said.

In a statement announcing the expanded probe, Mr. Comer cites the latest Biden presidency tell-all, written by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and correspondent Alex Thompson, which describes the recollections of dozens of mostly anonymous former Biden aides.

“Five people were running the country, and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board,” one aide recalls, according to the book.

He’s giving them a deadline to respond, or he’s dropping subpoenas.

James Comer ain’t playing…. he’s giving these staffers 24 hrs or they’re getting Subpoenas

Who else can’t wait until those pardons are voided and see Adam Schiff stand trial 👍 pic.twitter.com/wOHQYfsVxk

— @Chicago1Ray 🇺🇸 (@Chicago1Ray) June 4, 2025

No malarkey.

Let me be clear.

If any of these Biden White House staffers fail to cooperate with this investigation, I will issue subpoenas to compel their appearance.

Americans deserve full transparency and @GOPoversight is conducting a thorough investigation to provide answers. https://t.co/JFjycmYKOf

— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) June 4, 2025

The pucker factor has to be off the charts.

Game on.