President Trump’s administration has opened an investigation into whether Joe Biden ‘was competent‘ when he used an autopen to issue lame duck pardons to family members and death row inmates.
Ed Martin – Trump’s ultra-MAGA pardon attorney – said the Justice Department has been directed to investigate clemency granted by Biden in the waning days of his presidency, including the December pardon of his troubled son Hunter.
Martin’s unprecedented probe was revealed in a Monday email to staffers that was obtained by Reuters.
The attorney said the investigation involves whether Biden ‘was competent and whether others were taking advantage of him through use of AutoPen or other means.’
An autopen is a device used to automatically affix a signature to a document.
Trump and his supporters have made a variety of claims that Biden’s use of the device while president invalidated his actions or suggested that he was not fully aware of these actions.
It is not known whether Biden used autopen on pardons. In March, Trump declared his predecessor’s last-minute pardons ‘void, vacant and of no further force or effect.’ He also warned that members of the House committee investigating the January 6 riots can now face prosecution.
The email stated that Martin’s investigation is focused on preemptive pardons Biden issued to several members of his family and clemency that spared 37 federal inmates from the death penalty, converting their sentences to life in prison.
Just before he relinquished the presidency to Trump on January 20, Biden pardoned five members of his family, saying he wanted to protect them from future politically motivated investigations.
Biden on December 1 pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who had pleaded guilty to tax violations and was convicted on firearms-related charges.
Hunter faced up to 25 years in prison for the offences, although was expected to receive a much lighter punishment as his first offense.
He had a scheduled sentencing date for the charges, but the pardon rendered that court date moot.
Martin’s email did not specify which of the Biden family members pardons were being investigated.
It also did not make clear who directed Martin to launch the investigation.
Martin told reporters last month that he viewed the presidential pardon power as ‘plenary,’ meaning it is absolute.
‘If you use the autopen for pardon power, I don’t think that that’s necessarily a problem,’ Martin said during a May 13 press conference, adding that he still felt the Biden pardons warranted scrutiny.
The investigation appears designed to use the Justice Department to amplify questions about Biden’s health and mental acuity, a conversation that has intensified in recent weeks following his cancer diagnosis and a new book revealing Democratic concerns last year about Biden’s condition.
Questions have since arisen about whether Biden actually signed many of the orders under his administration amid his noticeable cognitive decline after it was revealed they were signed with an autopen.
The mechanical device signs documents rather than an individual. It has been used by presidents and lawmakers for decades.
The Oversight Project in March ‘gathered every document we could find with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency’.
‘All used the same autopen signature except for the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the race last year.’
It went on to share two examples from documents that it claimed showed the use of the autopen including a document from August 2022 as well as one from December 2024 with what appear to be identical signatures.
The group also posted an image of Biden’s signature as a comparison from when he announced he was dropping out of the race. That image shows a slight variation from the other shared documents.
