Politics
JUST IN: Liz Cheney, Dr. Fauci In Legal Peril After Bombshell Autopen Pardon Revelations
Republicans are salivating over disclosures in former President Joe Biden’s latest interview with the New York Times where he rebuts the charge that he lacked knowledge about the pardons of Liz Cheney, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and family members before staff used his autopen to enshrine their freedom.
The interview signaled Biden’s intent to step up a defense of his final weeks in office, which were marred by the unprecedented pardoning of his son Hunter Biden on tax and gun charges. Biden told the Times that he approved every pardon, but in the same breath admitted he “did not individually approve” each name presented to him.
Instead, he “signed off on the standards” he wanted to use for determining if a pardon should be granted, the outlet reported.
Biden insisted that his lack of knowledge about specific pardons was only contained to convicted criminals, including 37 of 40 individuals on federal death row who saw their sentences commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“Rather than ask Biden to keep signing revised versions, his staff waited and then ran the final version thru the autopen, which they saw as…routine,” the story states.
Given his administration’s lack of transparency around his declining mental acuity, Republicans remain suspicious about the possibility that top aides used his autopen to issue at least some of the high-profile pardons without his knowledge.
“Every Democrat in Washington better get asked about this tomorrow,” GOP strategist Matt Whitlock wrote on social media Sunday night.
The U.S. House Oversight Committee “will continue pursuing answers about this historic scandal to prevent such an abuse from happening again,” its Chair James Comer (R-KY) responded.
The Times singled out emails by Jeff Zients, the former White House chief of staff, who wrote at least once that he approved use of the autopen after presenting a summarized list of pardons to Biden.
President Donald Trump has accused his predecessor of lacking knowledge about who was signing his name with the autopen and questioned whether it was applied to dramatic expansions of asylum protections for migrants.
“We’re gonna start looking into this whole thing with who signed this legislation. Who signed legislation opening our border? I don’t think he knew,” Trump told reporters last month, Axios reported.
“Who was operating the autopen?,” he said, adding,”You know who signed it? Radical left lunatics who were running our country. And the autopen signed it.”
Democratic insiders, including former DNC fundraiser Lindy Li and former co-chair David Hogg, have pointed to “puppet masters” running the Oval Office around Biden, including Anthony Bernal, a longtime White House hand and former chief of staff to Dr. Jill Biden.
“They deny the cover-up, but I had a front-row seat watching it happen. People like Anthony Bernal. I saw him running the White House like he was in charge, like he was a king. It’s just so amazing now to see him dodge a subpoena and completely dodge accountability. He can run, but he can’t hide. His name is going to go down in infamy forever,” Li told Fox News earlier this month.
Bernal was a “shadowy, Wizard of Oz-type figure” in the West Wing, Hogg added in uncover video taken by Project Veritas.
“That was an open secret. Like, I would avoid him. He was scary,” Hogg recalled.