Not Opinion: The U.S. Did Not Have a Functioning President in 2024 and Probably Before

Biden's physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, "invoked the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination and declined to answer basic questions like whether he was ever asked to lie about Biden’s physical health or mental acuity," according to the Committee report.

“The investigation’s findings, detailed herein, 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.”

Indeed, as I've pointed out several times previously, the only way those 8,000 pardons could be invalidated was, as historian Kermit Roosevelt points out, “If the president doesn’t know that something was done, then it’s not a valid official act."

The Oversight Committee's conclusions call into question how those pardons were finalized and whether Biden even participated in meetings where the decision of who should be pardoned took place. 

"The Biden Autopen Presidency ranks among the greatest scandals in U.S. history," the report states.  "As President Biden declined, his staff abused the autopen and a lax chain-of-command policy to effect executive actions that lack any documentation of whether they were in fact authorized."

Eli Lake, writing in The Free Press, gives some details on how the slapdash process of granting pardons was carried out. 

For example, consider the spate of pardons for Biden’s extended family and political allies issued in the final hours of his presidency. The report found that there was no documentation memorializing a meeting where Biden himself allegedly authorized those pardons. What’s more, Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, authorized that the pardons themselves be signed by an autopen.

Zients told the committee that he wasn’t even in the meeting when the president allegedly made the decision on the pardons. Five other advisers, including deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed and White House counsel Ed Siskel, were in that meeting, and they then informed an assistant to Zients, who then informed Zients. “Zients admitted he did not attend the meeting—either physically or virtually—during which the president allegedly verbally provided his authorization for the pardons,” the report says. Zients then authorized a junior staffer, Rosa Po, to send the email on his behalf, authorizing the use of the autopen for the pardons. At no point did Zients or Po check with the president whether he actually agreed to the pardons he did not literally sign.

As Lake points out, "the last-minute pardons were themselves a scandal." The preemptive pardons of Biden family members were signed by the autopen before anyone had been charged with a crime. 

“In light of the former president’s cognitive deterioration and the cover-up from his inner circle, this ‘approval’ process calls into question the validity of all pardons reportedly granted by President Biden throughout his tenure,” the committee’s report says.

It's difficult to say whether any of those pardoned by autopen will be in any legal jeopardy. A presidential pardon is as close to dictatorial power as the Constitution grants a president. The pardon power in the Constitution is absolute and provides for no review by any other branch of government.

While the pardon itself isn't reviewable, the decision-making process that led to it might be challenged. It's a legal long shot and probably won't result in voiding any of the pardons. But someone somewhere must be held accountable for this frightening fiasco, where a cognitively challenged president with access to nuclear weapons and the full power of the national security state was unable to carry out his duties, leaving important decisions to unelected aides.