Category: Fauci
DOJ pardon attorney doubts validity of Biden autopen pardons as nullification campaign picks up steam
The campaign to throw out the Biden-era pardons for Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, members of the Biden clan, former members of the House Jan. 6 select committee, and other controversial figures appears to be gaining momentum — and the Office of the Pardon Attorney made clear this week that it’s onboard.
The House Oversight Committee alleged in its damning 100-page report on Tuesday that senior Biden staffers not only worked desperately to conceal the former president’s rapid mental deterioration but usurped his authority with the help of the presidential autopen — a machine used to affix Biden’s signature to a host of controversial executive actions and pardons.
‘In theory, a court invalidation could result in restoration of penalties.’
“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,” said the report. “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.”
Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) concluded that unauthorized executive actions signed by autopen were “null and void,” then asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to review the validity of all executive actions taken during Biden’s time in office.
Bondi confirmed on Tuesday that a review of the autopen use for pardons during the Biden era is underway.
Ed Martin, the U.S. pardon attorney at the DOJ, suggested in a letter on Monday to Comer that his investigation into the matter has turned up “disturbing findings” such that his office “cannot support the validity and ongoing legal effect of pardons and commutations issued during the Biden administration without further examination.”
In the letter obtained by CNN, Martin suggested that Biden’s admission to the New York Times that he “did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people” by itself “seems to raise serious questions of whether those commutations are valid.”
RELATED: Biden freed killers with a pen he didn’t even hold
Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
Martin indicated that doubt over the validity of the commutations is further compounded by the suggestion in former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer’s communications with the Biden White House that the autopenned commutations issued on Jan. 17 in the former president’s name were legally flawed.
The pardon attorney raised other “defects” concerning the pardon process, particularly in the final weeks of the administration.
“My office cannot support the validity of AutoPen pardons for individuals such as Anthony Fauci, Adam Schiff, Mark Milley, and many more without further examination and fact-finding,” wrote Martin. “In my tenure here, I have not seen any evidence supporting the theory that President Biden was personally aware and authorized these AutoPen’d pardons.”
Martin, who alluded to a court ultimately weighing in on the validity of the pardons, told Comer, “If these pardons or commutations are challenged in any way, I recognize serious difficulties in defending them.”
The Oversight Committee similarly foreshadowed a court voiding the pardons in its report, stating that “the Constitution is clear: ‘The President shall … have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States.'”
The committee further quoted from a recent essay by constitutional scholar Philip Hamburger, a professor at Columbia Law School, which concluded, “The history confirms that the Constitution’s location of the pardon power is significant. The president must make the decisions, and the courts can hold pardons void if the decisions are made by others.”
While the nullification campaign’s success in the courts could spell disaster for Fauci, Milley, and others, some scholars have cast doubt on the likelihood of that outcome.
When asked whether the pardonees’ convictions and legal vulnerabilities would be fully restored should their pardons be ruled invalid, Jeremy Paul, a professor of law at Northeastern University School of Law, told Blaze News, “In theory, a court invalidation could result in restoration of penalties. I see this as extremely unlikely.”
“If the DOJ attempted to impose punishment upon the affected individuals, the individuals would raise the pardons as a defense in federal court,” continued Paul. “Lower courts would issue rulings. The case could end up in the Supreme Court but that Court would not be required to hear the case.”
Paul expressed doubt about whether the pardons could be invalidated in the first place, stating, “Unless evidence emerges that DOJ officials granted pardons in express opposition to President Biden’s wishes, which seems highly unlikely, I cannot see any basis on which pardons could be deemed invalid.”
Bernadette Meyler, a Stanford Law School professor, suggested to CNN that one way to go about trying to void a pardon would be for Attorney General Bondi to “sue for a declaratory judgment that the pardons were invalid because of some form of impropriety in the signing of them, or in the giving of the pardon.”
Blaze News has reached out to the Office of the Pardon Attorney for comment.
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Bondi has bad news for Fauci, Milley, and other Biden pardonees: DOJ is actively reviewing Biden-era autopen use
The House Oversight Committee published a damning 100-page report on Tuesday deeming invalid those executive actions and pardons issued without proper authorization and with machine-generated signatures in former President Joe Biden’s name.
In a corresponding letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) noted that the committee had found “President Biden’s aides coordinated a cover-up of the president’s diminishing faculties” and “that these same aides utilized an ad hoc, inconsistent, and ineffective process to obtain President Biden’s assent to certain key decisions, which raises significant questions about whether President Biden knew — let alone provided a decision regarding — the ‘decisions’ that, often through the use of an autopen, ultimately bore his signature.”
Comer asked Bondi to investigate all executive actions taken during Biden’s time in office “to ascertain whether they were duly authorized by the president of the United States.”
Hours after the publication of the report and the committee’s assertion that Biden’s executive actions are “NULL and VOID,” Bondi revealed on X that her “team has already initiated a review of the Biden administration’s reported use of autopen for pardons.”
President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum on June 4 directing the White House Counsel’s Office to investigate, in consultation with Bondi and the head of any other relevant agency, “whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the president.”
Trump specifically tasked the investigators with looking into the “circumstances surrounding Biden’s supposed execution of numerous executive actions” and reviewing the policy documents for which the autopen was used, including clemency grants and executive orders.
RELATED: House committee declares unauthorized Biden autopen pardons ‘void’ in damning new report
Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
The Oversight Project, a government watchdog group, concluded in a Monday report that after reviewing approximately 1,597 enrolled copies of documents bearing Biden’s signature, 846 of 958 executive orders, pardons, commutations, and proclamations were signed with autopen.
Of the Biden-era documents analyzed, Oversight Project indicated that 75% of the pardons — including for Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, members of the Biden clan, and former members of the House Jan. 6 select committee — and 51.8% of the commutations were signed with autopen.
‘The “Pardons” that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT.’
Bondi noted that Comer’s “new information is extremely helpful, and his leadership on this issue is invaluable,” adding that the DOJ will continue working with the House Oversight Committee “to deliver accountability for the American people.”
Ed Martin, the DOJ’s pardon attorney who announced a similar investigation into the matter of Biden’s alleged pardons in May, responded to Bondi’s statement with emojis signifying police and the scales of justice. Martin also suggested that the Oversight Project’s statistics regarding autopen usage during the Biden administration warrant “closer review.”
A determination that some or all of the Biden-era pardons are invalid could prove consequential for many of the recipients, including Fauci, the fifth director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who received a “full and unconditional” pass for possible federal crimes going back to 2014, and for Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff whom Trump has accused of committing “treason.”
However, Trump has made clear that he especially wishes to see consequence visited on the former members of the House Jan. 6 select committee.
Trump announced after the Oversight Project’s initial exposé about the liberal use of the presidential autopen during the Biden administration,
The “Pardons” that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime. Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two year Witch Hunt of me, and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level.
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