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The House Oversight and Government Reform committee said in a published Tuesday that former President Joe Biden's staff used his authority and concealed his “rapidly worsening” condition. Senior White House officials misused an autopen to create his signature and abused a chain-of-command policy for executive actions, the Republican-controlled committee wrote in its report. Aides also tried to “prop up” Biden and mislead the country about his state, according to the group. “The Biden Autopen Presidency will go down as one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history,” Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in a . “As Americans saw President Biden’s decline with their own eyes, Biden’s inner circle sought to deceive the public, cover-up his decline, and took unauthorized executive actions with the autopen that are now invalid.” Democratic members of the committee the idea that Biden’s actions are invalid. The “scandal” Comer referenced is “nothing more than a feeble attempt to attack the legitimacy of President Biden’s policies,” they said. A majority of the committee said Biden decided in a meeting to issue pardons on Jan. 19 for members of his family, members of the former House committee on the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and former health director Anthony Fauci, among other people. The committee noted that there was no “contemporaneous” documentation of the meeting, although an aide to then-Chief of Staff Jeff Zients communicated Biden’s decision to Zients. The chief of staff then authorized the use of an to sign the pardons, according to the panel, which took issue with the alleged lack of documentation on the pardon decisions. “The investigation revealed holes in the chain of custody of the president’s decision binder, which contained decision memos to be signed or initialed by President Biden when approving or disapproving executive actions, as well as numerous instances in which the president’s approval for an executive action or the chief of staff’s approval of signature by autopen was not memorialized,” the committee wrote. “Among the most flagrant of these instances are the clemency actions taken in the final days of the Biden presidency.” Democrats on the panel said there is no credible evidence to support Comer’s claim, noting that Republicans’ assertions are "as empty as their ‘evidence.’” “The testimonies also make it clear the former President authorized every executive order, pardon, and use of the autopen,” Ranking Member Robert Garcia, D-Calif., said in a . “Oversight Democrats are committed to working towards a better future for the American people.” Majority members of the committee said that Biden’s staff also tried to mislead the public by hiding his condition with makeup and “addressing” the number of steps he would climb. The staff also allegedly limited his schedule, used teleprompters and elicited advice from “Hollywood." “Even more troubling than the president experiencing a decline in mental acuity was President Biden’s inner circle of loyalists attempting to mislead the nation to ignore what people’s eyes plainly showed them,” the committee said. Democratic panel members called the into Biden’s health “sinister.” “After extensive witness interviews and numerous media appearances, the Majority has produced no credible evidence to substantiate his assertions, demonstrating once again his preference for partisanship over genuine oversight,” the members said, referencing Comer. Have questions, concerns or tips? Send them to Ray at .
