Kevin O'Connor

Oct. 28 (UPI) — The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday asked the Justice Department to investigate former President Joe Biden‘s use of the autopen to sign executive orders and pardons.

The request came after the committee released a report on its investigation into Biden’s use of the autopen and whether it indicated an administration coverup of an alleged cognitive decline.

In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the committee, accused Biden’s aides of coordinating “a cover-up of the president’s diminishing faculties.”

Over the summer, the oversight committee interviewed more than a dozen former aides and advisers to Biden. Among those who appeared before the committee were former chiefs of staff Ron Klein and Jeff Zients, and Biden’s former physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who invoked the Fifth Amendment.

In addition to the letter to Bondi, Comer sent a letter to Andrea Anderson, chairwoman of the board of medicine at the District of Columbia Health calling on the board to investigate whether O’Connor was “derelict in his duty as a physician by, including but not limited to, issuing misleading medical reports, misrepresenting treatments, failing to conform to standards of practice, or other acts in violation of District of Columbia law regulating licensed physicians.”

The committee recommended that O’Connor’s medical license be revoked.

President Donald Trump has taken particular issue with Biden’s use of the autopen during his presidency, though he, himself, has used it. In a Presidential Walk of Fame exhibit installed at the White House in September, photos of each president were displayed outside the West Wing, except Biden’s. Instead, a photo of an autopen was put in Biden’s place.

There’s been a long history of presidents using an autopen to sign the many documents that come across their desks each day, beginning with the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. According to the Shapell Manuscript Foundation, which collects historical documents, Presidents Gerald Ford, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama used the device, some to sign the many requests for autographs and letters, others to sign important documents and orders.

In 2005, then-President George W. Bush asked the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel whether it was constitutional for him to sign official documents using the autopen. The office concluded that “the president need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law.”

Trump said he has used the autopen but not for important documents. In June, he ordered an investigation into Biden’s cognitive state.

Biden has denied Trump’s claims about his mental faculties and autopen use.

“I made the decisions during my presidency,” Biden said in a statement.

“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations.

“Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” he added.

May 23 (UPI) — The GOP-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has called on President Joe Biden‘s physician and former White House aides to sit for interviews as it investigates an alleged cover-up of the former president’s health.

“The cover-up of President Biden’s obvious mental decline is a historic scandal,” Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement Thursday. “The American people deserve to know why this decline began, how far it progressed and who was making critical decisions on his behalf.”

Concerns about Biden’s age and mental capacity plagued his re-election campaign and the perception of his fitness for office, following a poor showing at a debate against Donald Trump in June, led to his eventual withdrawal from the race.

In the past week, there has been renewed interest in Biden’s health after he announced he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and the publication of books that allege his mental capacity while in office had diminished since his election.

Allegations and conspiracy theories have been made by President Donald Trump and Republicans that there was a Democratic coverup of Biden’s decline while in office and that someone else other than the 46th president was making decisions during his term in office.

Comer, who led a failed multiyear impeachment investigation into Biden and his family during the Biden administration, sent letters on Thursday to Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician and longtime family friend, and four of his close aides, demanding they sit for transcribed interviews.

The four aides to receive letters from Comer are: Neera Tanden, former director of the Domestic Policy Council, Anthony Bernal; former assistant to the president and senior adviser to former first lady Jill Biden; Annie Tomasini, former assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff; and Ashley Williams, former special assistant to the president and deputy director of Oval Office operations.

In the letter to O’Connor, Comer wrote that the committee is “investigating the accuracy, transparency and credibility of your medical assessments” of Biden during his presidency, citing his February 2024 report that described then-president as “a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the president.”

“Further, the Committee remains interested in whether your financial relationship with the Biden family affected your assessment of former President Biden’s physical and mental fitness to fulfill his duties as president. Given your connections with the Biden family, the Committee seeks to understand if you contributed to an effort to hide former President Biden’s fitness to serve from the American people.”

Biden announced his prostate cancer diagnosis on Sunday.

Trump — who has long attacked Biden over his border policies, often describing them as “Biden’s open borders” — did an about-face following his former political opponent’s cancer announcement and shifted blame to those in Biden’s inner circle whom he now accuses of being behind the alleged cover-up.

“Joe Biden was not for Open Borders, he never talked about Open Borders … it wasn’t his idea to Open the Border, and almost destroy our Country … It was the people that knew he was cognitively impaired and that took over the Autopen,” Trump said on his Truth Social media platform.

“This is TREASON at the Highest Level!”

Comer said he wants responses to his letters by May 29 and is seeking to schedule interviews between June 2 and 25.