Speaker of the House Mike Johnson argues that Joe Biden's pardons are invalid.

 

Mike Johnson and Joe Biden. Fox News/Getty. 

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has argued that Joe Biden's pardons are invalid due to autopen usage. Fox News. Johnson said that entire categories of federal criminals were given pardons or commutations, but said Biden wasn't even aware of it. The comments come after a 100 page congressional report was released. Johnson said that the pardons could be in legal jeopardy and said that it couldn't be tolerated when a "checked out" president is having his decisions made for him. Biden, for his part, has said that he made all decisions on pardons and said the accusations are baseless. 

My Comment:

This seems like political theater for me. I have little doubt that Joe Biden issued pardons that he didn't have the full details of. I also think it's likely that some of the pardons that were delivered via autopen were not actually authorized. The problem is what can be done about it?

My guess? Not much. I don't think there is any precedence for removing a pardon once invoked. This would even be true if the pardon was fraudulent on its face. If some criminal was released by a staffer and Biden had nothing to do with it, even then, I don't think anything can be done. There just isn't anything in the constitution or case law that says fake pardons can be revoked. 

With that being said, I do think the issue was a serious one. I legitimately don't think that Biden himself was in full control of the presidency and it's absolutely not clear if he was in charge. It's very possible, probable even, that these pardons were absolutely not released by him. 

So why even bring it up? I am hoping this means that these presidential aides will be investigated and charged for fraud. If there is even a chance that this is true then people absolutely need to go to jail. Staffers issuing pardons for an enfeebled president is not something that should ever be allowed to happen again. 

I think some of it is some fairly cynical political maneuvering though. Biden being an invalid is helpful for Republicans in 2026 and reminding the voters of that is a good move politically. And I do feel this is a real scandal, when you get down to it a lot of what the Biden administration did may not have been done by Biden himself and that's a huge problem

But I fear it may backfire. It reminds me of the Jeffrey Epstein own-goal earlier in the year. Pam Bondi and Trump promised huge file releases and when what they had underwhelmed it backfired on them pretty badly. The same thing could happen here, there might be enough for a perp-walk or two, but the chances of success are pretty low. 

My real concern is Biden himself. The man is 82, feeble and well in to dotage. And he is currently fighting an aggressive form of cancer that may leave him dead sooner rather than later. Admitting that gives me no pleasure and I think that's a real risk of investigating Biden. Republicans aren't as vicious as Democrats, we generally don't cheer when folks get hurt and this kind of investigation on Biden when he may indeed be dying seems like a huge risk.