President Donald Trump has just officially launched a devastating investigation into what may be the biggest constitutional scandal in American history, formally ordering the Justice Department to probe whether former President Joe Biden’s aides operated a shadow presidency using autopen devices to sign executive orders and pardons while the former president was mentally incapacitated.
In an explosive memo Wednesday, Trump tasked the Counsel to the President with determining if “certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President,” with Attorney General Pam Bondi and other agency heads providing consultation.
The investigation has just produced shocking evidence that threatens to invalidate major portions of Biden’s presidency.
Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project examined Biden’s presidential signatures and found that crucial documents – including his 11th-hour pardons for Dr. Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, January 6 Committee members, and Biden family members – all bear the telltale marks of autopen usage rather than Biden’s actual signature.
Trump didn’t mince words about the implications, declaring on Truth Social that Biden’s autopen pardons are “VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT.” He warned members of the “Unselect Committee” that they should “fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level.”
The president has even given Biden a new nickname – “AUTOPEN” – using it in a Truth Social post about Iran policy: “The AUTOPEN should have stopped Iran a long time ago from ‘enriching.’ Under our potential Agreement — WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM!”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer announced Wednesday night that he’s subpoenaing Biden’s personal physician as part of the congressional investigation into the alleged cover-up of Biden’s cognitive decline and unauthorized autopen use.
Daniel Turner, founder of Power The Future, delivered damning testimony to Congress Wednesday, claiming White House staff used Biden’s autopen in a “deceit of the American people” by signing orders with “no evidence of Joe Biden in first person, in his voice as president talking about them.”
The potential constitutional implications are staggering, Republican critics say.
“Given clear indications that President Biden lacked the capacity to exercise his Presidential authority, if his advisors secretly used the mechanical signature pen to conceal this incapacity, while taking radical executive actions all in his name, that would constitute an unconstitutional wielding of the power of the Presidency, a circumstance that would have implications for the legality and validity of numerous executive actions undertaken in Biden’s name,” Trump claimed.
Indeed, legal experts have pointed to well-established precedent for invalidating fraudulent documents.
The Supreme Court declared unanimously in United States v. Throckmorton (1878): “There is no question of the general doctrine that fraud vitiates the most solemn contracts, documents, and even judgments.” There is no exception for presidential documents.
The evidence of Biden’s mental decline had been mounting throughout his presidency, and have recently been confirmed by insiders. House Speaker Mike Johnson recounted a shocking private meeting to Fox News recently, in which Biden had no memory of signing an executive order pausing liquefied natural gas exports just weeks earlier.
“I didn’t do that!” Biden insisted when Johnson brought up the order. When Johnson explained that he did sign it and offered to retrieve a copy, Biden doubled down: “No, I didn’t do that.”
“He genuinely did not know what he had signed,” Johnson revealed. “And I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, ‘We are in serious trouble —who is running the country?’ Like, I don’t know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn’t know.”
This revelation raises the terrifying possibility that major executive actions were taken without Biden’s knowledge or consent, potentially by what sources describe as a “Politburo” of unelected White House aides, who allegedly used the Soviet-era term for themselves.
Throughout his presidency, multiple public appearances captured Biden’s confusion about his own authority.
At the White House Easter Egg roll in 2024, a confused Biden asked staffers: “Am I allowed to take questions? Where’s my staff?”
In 2023, he told reporters: “The one thing I thought when I got to be president is that I’d get to give orders, but I take more orders than I ever did.”
While Biden’s hand-signed documents like Hunter Biden’s pardon and his announcement dropping out of the 2024 race show his genuine signature, major policy documents and controversial pardons all show autopen markings, The Heritage Foundation has claimed.
Biden issued a denial Wednesday, and said he alone made the decisions while he was in the White House — even at the twilight of his term.
“I made the decisions about pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” Biden said, and then attacked Republicans for pushing “disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations.”
The timing of Biden’s recent disclosure that he’s fighting an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer only adds to questions about how long his health problems were hidden from the American people.
If the investigation proves that unelected aides were making presidential decisions while using autopen to forge Biden’s signature, it would represent the greatest constitutional crisis since Watergate.
The implications go far beyond individual pardons – it would mean that major policy decisions affecting everything from energy exports to criminal justice were made by shadow operators with no constitutional authority.
If courts determine that key executive actions were fraudulently signed without Biden’s knowledge or consent, it could invalidate everything from controversial pardons to major policy reversals that shaped his administration.
Comer has demanded testimony from various former White House aides and made clear he’s “open” to dragging Biden himself before the House to answer questions about who was really running the country during his presidency.