House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer released a bombshell report Tuesday that officially declared thousands of former President Joe Biden’s executive actions invalid.
Comer demanded the Department of Justice investigate whether Biden’s inner circle conspired to cover up his cognitive decline so they could illegally run the government in his place.
The 100-page report, titled “The Biden Autopen Presidency: Decline, Delusion, and Deception in the White House,” accuses Biden’s senior aides of exercising presidential powers without his knowledge or consent and using the autopen to sign critical documents in his place because of Biden’s deteriorated mental state.
“Faced with the cognitive decline of President Joe Biden, White House aides — at the direction of the inner circle — hid the truth about the former president’s condition and fitness for office,” the report said.
Comer sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi urging a comprehensive investigation into all executive actions taken during Biden’s presidency from January 20, 2021 to January 19, 2025.
“Executive actions performed by Biden White House staff and signed by autopen are null and void,” Comer said in a statement. “Biden’s aides misled the American people and hijacked the powers of the presidency.”
The committee found that 32 of 51 clemencies issued by Biden were signed using digital copies of his signature that completely lack documentation linking the former president to the decisions.
“In the absence of sufficient contemporaneous documentation indicating that cognitively deteriorating President Biden himself made a given executive decision, such decisions do not carry the force of law and should be considered void,” the report said.
The autopen signed commutations for thousands of federal prisoners, including violent offenders, and was used to commute the sentences of nearly every federal inmate on death row. The device was also used to pardon members of Biden’s family, Dr. Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, and members of Congress who served on the January 6th Committee.
The report detailed a January 19 incident described as a “game of telephone” in which Chief of Staff Jeff Zients authorized the autopen for a final batch of pardons without evidence of Biden’s direct approval.
“The investigation’s findings make clear that, as President Biden was losing command of himself throughout his time in office, his executive actions — especially pardons, of which there are many — cannot all be deemed his own,” the report said. “The authority to grant pardons is not provided to the president’s inner circle. Nor can it be delegated to particular staff when a president’s competency is in question.”
The committee interviewed 14 former senior Biden aides over three months, conducting nearly 47 hours of testimony. Zients told investigators Hunter Biden was present during pardon discussions at the end of the administration.
The report criticized what Republicans called a “haphazard documentation process” that left the chain of custody for presidential decisions difficult or impossible to establish. Former White House Staff Secretary Neera Tanden told investigators she did not know what happened to the decision book between when she gave materials to the Oval Office operations team and received it back with Biden’s signature.
“The inner-most circle, or cocoon, of the White House senior staff organized one of the largest scandals in American history — hiding a cognitively failing president and refusing any means of confirmation of such demise,” the report said.
Three Biden aides invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify. Comer asked the Justice Department to investigate former White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who answered only to provide his name during his deposition, as well as Deputy Chief of Staff Annie Tomasini and First Lady advisor Anthony Bernal.
Comer also sent a letter to the District of Columbia Board of Medicine asking it to review O’Connor’s actions and potentially bar him from practicing medicine. The report accused O’Connor of issuing “grossly misleading medical assessments” and failing to conduct cognitive testing on Biden during his four-year term.
“His refusal to answer questions about the execution of his duties as physician to the president — combined with testimony indicating that Dr. O’Connor may have succumbed to political pressure from the inner circle, influencing his medical decisions and aiding in the cover-up — legitimizes the public’s concerns that Dr. O’Connor was not forthright in carrying out his ultimate duties to the country,” the report said.
Biden and his team have all repeatedly denied the allegations. In a July interview with The New York Times, the former president insisted he made every decision during his presidency.
“I made the decisions during my presidency — the pardons, the orders, the proclamations,” Biden said. “I made every single one of those. And — including the categories, when we set this up to begin with.”
“The autopen is, you know, is legal,” Biden said. “As you know, other presidents used it, including Trump. But the point is that, you know, we’re talking about a whole lot of people.”
A Biden spokesperson called the investigation baseless.
“This investigation into baseless claims has confirmed what has been clear from the start: President Biden made the decisions of his presidency,” the spokesperson told Fox News. “There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, and no wrongdoing.”
The report states Biden’s pardons and other executive actions should be considered void since they lack all documented proof of his approval.
“Barring evidence of executive actions taken during the Biden presidency showing that President Biden indeed took a particular executive action, the committee deems those actions taken through use of the autopen as void,” the report said.