Donald Trump, during his tenure, commanded an in-depth inquiry into the purported obfuscation of Joe Biden’s deteriorating cognitive function. The mandate, however, left many puzzled, as it did not delineate any grounds or legal basis for the exploration of Biden’s mental faculties.
The broad probe, ordered by Trump, aimed to shed light on whether Biden, as the serving president, masked any cognitive impairment. Moreover, it questioned Biden’s capacity to carry out executive decisions effortlessly – an unusual indictment that, if proven, could effectively question the validity of numerous presidential actions and pardons executed during Biden’s term.
Trump’s mandate sought to establish if the use of the autopen — a device that mimics human-like signatures by utilizing real ink — was employed legitimately or if it was a tactic of Biden’s staff to create a smokescreen around a president allegedly incapable of signing documents himself. Despite this machine being an instrument regularly used by presidents, including Trump himself, for signing executive orders, its usage under the Biden administration has been scandalously endeavored to be picked to pieces.
The criticism against Biden’s autopen usage seems to collide with the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel guidelines, issued in 2005, that concluded that a president need not physically sign an official document for it to be deemed valid. Trump, however, unhampered by this guidance, directed his executive order to scrutinize Biden’s pardons, especially those issued during the twilight of his presidency.
Trump pointedly questioned the commutations of death penalties for 37 out of 40 convicts on federal death row. These convicts, despite clemency from capital punishment, continue to endure life sentences, their fate transformed under an allegedly failing president, made worse by compliant aides.
Trump, in his written mandate, addressed the suspicion that Biden’s aides might have grossly misused presidential decisions by resorting to the autopen behind closed doors, thereby camouflaging Biden’s intellectual regression. He expressed that this conspiracy occupying a significant place in political scandals signaled one of the gravest concerns in American history.
Trump notably accused Biden’s administration of a deliberate cover-up, hiding the true executor of the executive power and effectively manipulating thousands of documents in radical policy reshaping. The spotlight has progressively been shifted toward Biden’s cognitive competency and decision-making capabilities. Biden’s marked decline, especially following his diagnosis with metastatic prostate cancer, and his subsequent withdrawal from the reelection race after a lackluster and disoriented debate performance against Trump, raised more than a few eyebrows.
Biden and his staff, however, have discarded any assertions of incapacity during his presidency. ‘I made the decisions during my presidency,’ Biden quoted, affirming that the decisions including pardons, executive orders, legislations, and proclamations, were his own. Any argument on the contrary he dismissed as absurd and fallacious.
The growing conviction among Trump and his political followers suggests that Biden was merely a puppet, with his aides pulling the strings behind the scenes. For scrutiny, a 2024 report by then-special counsel Robert K. Hur was cited, investigating Biden’s handling of classified documents. Hur’s decision not to bring charges was, in part, attributed to the assumed jury sympathy for an aged Biden with memory issues.
There’s been a growing demand from some Republicans to have Biden’s former aides testify before Congress on Biden’s mental condition. There’s also been a suggestion for Jill Biden, former First Lady, to testify, a concept Trump reluctantly endorsed acknowledging the potential anguish for Jill.
Trump’s fixation on Biden’s autopen use traces back to the inception of Biden’s term. Trump insinuated, without substantiating evidence, that Biden’s aides may have exploited this device unknowingly to Biden. Amid Biden’s alleged decline, more than 1,200 presidential documents were issued, 235 federal judges were appointed, and an unprecedented number of pardons and commutations were made.
Trump’s executive order, regrettably, left everyone in the dark about the framework or lawful validation for such an inquiry, offering no hint of how he intends on challenging Biden’s past orders. His other directives similarly urged Justice Department officials and others to probe contentious subjects.
In April, he set Attorney General Pam Bondi on the task of scrutinizing fundraising platforms like ActBlue, an essential fundraising mechanism for the Democratic Party. He also instructed the attorney general to probe former officials who dared to challenge him during his first administration, including ex-Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor, a former homeland security official.