Playtime is over.
The New York Times’ latest piece attempting to help former President Joe Biden and his administration off the hook in the growing autopen scandal is having the opposite effect. If anything, the Biden apologists raised a lot more questions about just who was in control of the White House — and the thousands of presidential clemency decisions issued in the waning days of Biden’s disastrous term.
The newspaper’s veiled attempt to publicly exonerate the cognitively compromised former president and his staff from a three-front investigation also raises the urgency for answers under oath. The reporters’ 10-minute phone interview with Biden in which he dubiously claims to have “made every decision” on his record-smashing 4,245 acts of clemency (the vast majority in the closing months of his term), despite emails showing multiple pardons were granted via autopen without the president’s approval. Interestingly, the Times’ piece notes that the only clemency warrant that Biden signed with his own hand in late 2024 was the preemptive full pardon he granted his corrupt son, Hunter Biden.
Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said he wants to see more heat on the people who reportedly were in the White House rooms when the decisions were apparently made.
“Obviously, things were so unusual at the end [of Biden’s presidential term] that it mandates further investigation,” he told The Federalist on Monday. Grothman added that more committee-issued subpoenas should be part of that intensified “package” of committee actions.
‘Historic Scandal’
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who serves as chairman of the Oversight Committee, said the Times’ story “confirms Biden White House staff took executive action without the President’s approval.”
“The House Oversight Committee will continue pursuing answers about this historic scandal to prevent such an abuse from happening again,” Comer said in a statement to The Federalist. Whether the ongoing investigations will include further subpoenas wasn’t clear.
Anthony Bernal, former Biden assistant and senior adviser to First Lady Jill Biden, is scheduled to sit for a committee deposition on Wednesday. Bernal failed to show up for a voluntary interview last month. His failure earned him a subpoena to compel his testimony.
Biden’s White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who has claimed in his medical evaluations that Biden was up to the job, also was issued a subpoena to appear. He finally showed up last week but did not answer a single question, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and doctor-patient privilege.
“It’s clear there was a conspiracy to cover up President Biden’s cognitive decline after Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician and family business associate, refused to answer any questions and chose to hide behind the Fifth Amendment,” Comer said in a statement. “The American people demand transparency, but Dr. O’Connor would rather conceal the truth.”
O’Connor, was called to answer in sworn testimony the question at the core of the autopen scandal and the probe into Biden’s mental decline: Was the president fit to serve? If not, what happens to those late-term pardons, commutations, and myriad other decisions a cognitively compromised Biden ostensibly made? Did Biden even know what his team was doing in his name — and what the autopen was signing?
‘White-Shoe Lawyers’
Department of Justice pardon attorney Ed Martin, too, is investigating the autopen scandal. Martin last month, according to the New York Post, instructed staff to look into Biden’s competency “and whether others were taking advantage of him through use of AutoPen or other means.”
To do that, investigators may have to ramp up their efforts to compel testimony. The New York Times’ preemptive defense of Biden and his White House sent a message to President Donald Trump and the GOP-controlled congress that Biden administration officials have “enlisted a flight of white-shoe lawyers from around Washington.”
“Some lawyers are said to have warned their clients not to talk publicly and about the dangers of testifying because the Justice Department under Mr. Trump might be eager to bring perjury charges over any inconsistency, no matter how minor,” New York Times’ Washington correspondents Charlie Savage and Tyler Pager wrote.
O’Connor’s lawyers “cited the pending Justice Department inquiry and the risk of being ensnared in ambiguous circumstances,” according to the piece.
Of course, the elite firms named in the piece couldn’t be bothered to help Republicans when the Biden White House, congressional Democrats, and their liberal lawfare allies were making life absolute hell for their political opponents.
‘I Approve the Use of the Autopen’
The man at the center of the late-term autopen bonanza has been reluctant in the past to answer questions. Jeffrey Zients, Biden’s chief of staff, was a point man for many of the reported discussions, including the midnight pardons of accused pandemic criminal Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, and members of the House committee that held the political show trial on the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot. The Times reported that “Biden kept his aides up until nearly 10 p.m.” to talk through last-minute pardon decisions, or at least so sayeth “people familiar with the matter.” The octogenarian president who routinely nodded off during the day was not known to keep such late hours.
On that night, Zients hit “reply all” before writing, “I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons,” according to the news outlet.
Exactly what Zients knows remains closed to federal investigators. In February, Martin, who at the time served as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sent a letter to Zients asking whether Biden “was aware of the breadth of the pardons & the unprecedented preemptive nature.” Zients reportedly blew off the request because it wasn’t a subpoena.
The Seattle Times’ tilted headline at the time? “Trump-allied prosecutor looks to undermine Biden pardons.”
A source with knowledge of the situation tells The Federalist that Zients is cooperating with the Oversight Committee and that a date for his appearance is expected to be set soon.
This Could Take A While
According to the Oversight Committee, other former Biden officials scheduled to appear for transcribed interviews on the former president’s mental decline include:
› Annie Tomasini, Former Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff (July 18)
› Ronald Klain, former chief of staff (July 24)
› Steve Ricchetti, former counselor to the president (July 30)
› Mike Donilon, former senior adviser to the president (July 31)
› Bruce Reed, former deputy chief of staff for Policy (Aug. 5)
› Anita Dunn, former senior adviser to the president for Communications (Aug. 7)
Comer also has sent letters to former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Senior Adviser Ian Sams, and Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates. This could take a while.
Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in late May sent 28 former Biden Cabinet officials letters seeking answers on Biden’s “cognitive and health decline during his time in office and while running for re-election.” The list includes former Vice President Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and several of the former White House aides called by the House Committee.
Johnson told The Federalist that the committee has conducted one transcribed interview to date. The rest “appear to be willing to be interviewed, they’re just on vacation until September.”
“I intend to create a historical record and expand interviews beyond cabinet officials based on what we learn,” the Wisconsin Republican said.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
