House GOP is preparing a report on Biden’s use of the automatic printing press

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are preparing to release a report on the findings of their investigation into former President Joe Biden and what they allege was potential abuse of the presidential clerk during his term.

The report, which will likely be released in the coming weeks, focuses on disputed and so far unproven claims that Biden was not only visibly aging while in office, but that his mental state deteriorated to the point that it allowed White House officials to enact policies without his knowledge.

“The House Oversight Committee revealed how the Biden presidency ranks among the greatest scandals in American history,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement. “With President Biden’s refusal, his staff abused the robotic pen to carry out unauthorized executive actions. We have completed interviews with key Biden aides and will soon report our findings to the American people.”

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The Republican-led panel declined to present cases in which investigators might have heard testimony or found instances in which an autopen — a mechanical device used to copy a person’s original signature — had been misused. A spokesman for the committee’s Republican majority said the cases would be detailed in the report, but did not provide further details.

The committee interviewed more than a dozen former senior officials in the Biden administration as part of the investigation, pressing them for information about Biden’s mental fitness while he was in office. Oversight Democrats have dismissed the investigation as a distraction and say the committee is turning a blind eye to wrongdoing by the Trump administration.

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Biden has strongly denied that he was not aware of his administration’s actions. He also denied allegations that he was mentally deteriorated to such an extent that it hampered his ability to lead as president while in office.

“Let me be clear: I have made decisions during my presidency,” Biden said in a statement over the summer. “I have made decisions on pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations.” “Any suggestion I didn’t do is ridiculous and false.”

What the committee heard in testimony

Some of the Biden officials who were subpoenaed cited their Fifth Amendment rights and declined to answer questions, including Biden’s former physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor; Anthony Bernal, former chief of staff to First Lady Jill Biden; and Annie Tommasini, a former senior adviser to Biden. Other aides spoke to the committee.

Several aides acknowledged that the pace of Biden’s schedule slowed during his tenure, according to a person familiar with the private testimony who was granted anonymity to discuss it. Jeff Zients, who was chief of staff, said Biden’s decision-making process slowed during the administration. He said that decisions that previously required three meetings eventually required a fourth meeting.

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Zients also discussed how to ensure the public’s mental fitness of the president. Senior officials, including O’Connor, have discussed whether Biden should take a cognitive test, which O’Connor said he would consider.

But even as they described signs of Biden’s aging — he was 82 when he left office — some Biden officials also pushed back forcefully on the central premise of the Republican investigation — that staffers effectively usurped the powers of the presidency for themselves.

“There was no nefarious conspiracy of any kind among the president’s senior staff, and certainly no conspiracy to hide the president’s mental state from the American people,” Steve Ricchetti, a longtime Biden confidant, told the committee.

Why automated questions are important

Biden’s age, apparent weakness in office and meandering public speeches were central to the messaging of President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress during last year’s election cycle. The Trump White House has continued to mock Biden over the issue, going so far as to post a photo of the Presidential Press in place of Biden’s official portrait in the Presidential Portrait Gallery recently installed in the West Wing.

But Republicans’ focus on the presidential inauguration may have broader legal consequences.

Trump and Republican lawmakers have argued that improper use of the stylus would increase the likelihood that dozens of executive actions, pardons and laws under Biden would be ruled invalid in court. Trump has already ordered the Justice Department to investigate.

Trump’s memo from the White House to Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed that any instances in which the bionic pen is used without Biden’s knowledge would be an “unconstitutional use of presidential power” that “would have implications for the legality and validity of numerous executive actions taken in Biden’s name.”

This argument has not been legally tested and may raise difficult questions about Trump’s use of the robotic pen. Republican lawmakers insist that Biden’s example in the White House was an exceptional situation.

Republicans also argued that any former employee found to have misused the stylus should be criminally prosecuted.

Legal experts and Democrats called these arguments implausible and warned that such precedents would jeopardize many of Trump’s policies during his two terms in office.