Overview
- Republican members of the House Oversight Committee released a roughly 90–100 page report asserting that certain executive actions attributed to Joe Biden and signed by autopen, including pardons and commutations, were illegitimate without verifiable personal approval.
- The committee formally asked the Justice Department to review all Biden-era executive actions and referred specific aides for scrutiny, and it requested the D.C. Board of Medicine evaluate former White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor.
- Bondi acknowledged the referral and said the Justice Department has initiated a review of the reported autopen use for clemency actions, while not announcing any move to nullify specific orders.
- Investigators cited gaps in contemporaneous records, including National Archives statements that no staff notes confirmed Biden’s presence or approvals at key clemency meetings, and noted several aides invoked the Fifth Amendment.
- Democrats and Biden rejected the findings as baseless and politically driven, and legal experts pointed to the difficulty of undoing pardons and longstanding DOJ guidance allowing autopen use when authorized by the president.