August 12, 2025 • 27 mins
Garrison talks with Robert about Republican investigations into the presidential autopen as a way to rescind pardons and remove judges.
Sources:
https://www.shapell.org/behind-the-scenes/the-robot-pen/
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1908354
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/05/politics/autopen-trump-biden-analysis
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/us/politics/biden-pardon-autopen-trump.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/us/politics/biden-clemency-interview.html
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is it could happen here, the show about things
falling apart.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
One thing falling apart last year.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I guess the president's mental health seemingly so, and we're
going to talk about that today and some possible ramifications
that the current president may be trying to exploit to
help him out. Robert Evans, Hello, how are you?
Speaker 4 (00:28):
I'm fine? Is something wrong with the president?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
The current one or the old one?
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Any president ever? Has a president ever done wrong?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I heard some nasty things about mister Clinton.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Interesting. I woke up today for the first time, so
this is all new to me.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Just don't look on like the news or the internet
or anything, and it should be.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Okay, that's good. I'm just going to start reading Wikipedia
at the A section and see if I get to
anything bad about a president.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
So since taking office, Trump is actually sort of been
going soft on old sleepy Joe, not out of the
goodness of his own heart, right, but to possibly explore
legal options to get around some of the roadblocks Trump's
been facing in the judicial branch.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Trump's been arguing that Biden himself was mostly absent, especially
during the later half of his presidency, and a sort
of like secret cabal of cabinet members, DNC consultants, white
House staff, and aids were running a shadow presidency.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Yeah, and one of my constant takes is there are
no secret cabals. There's a lot of cabals. They're all
very obvious, very public, very public cabals.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
But this secret cabal of like DNC interns, we're using
Biden's signature via auto pen to set policy, make judicial appointments,
and sign orders, all with little to zero awareness from
poor old six b Joe. In fact, people around Biden
intentionally covered up his declining health to continue using his
(02:06):
presidential power for their own progressive agenda.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
If only they'd used it for that, and not just
to keep getting.
Speaker 6 (02:13):
Paychecks or sending bombs to Israel, or sending bombs to
Israel many of the other, many of the other things
that Biden seem to preoccupied with. I would have play
a clip from a month and a half ago Donald Trump,
current president, explaining this conspiracy of the secret Joe Biden cabal.
Speaker 7 (02:33):
I'm sure that he didn't know many of the things. Look,
he was never for open borders, he was never for
transgender for everybody, he was never for men playing in
women's sports. I mean he changed, I mean all of
these things that changed so radically. I don't think he
had any idea that what was Frankly, I said it
during the debate and I say it now. He didn't
(02:53):
have much of an idea what was going on.
Speaker 5 (02:57):
He shouldn't be.
Speaker 7 (02:57):
I mean, essentially, whoever used the auto was the president, and.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
That is wrong.
Speaker 7 (03:03):
It's illegal, it's so bad, and it's so disrespectful to
our country.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Transgender for everybody. The defining legacy of the Biden era,
sure is his core policy platform.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yeah, okay, I don't know, Like, what do you even
say at this point? Right, Like, honestly, he's sending troops
into the second major city, this one the capital, and
taking over control of the police force. How much is
it worth just being like oh and he said another
thing that's not true, Like I know it's important to
cover all this, but also like, man, I'm tired.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Oh yeah, no, it's it's it's incredibly frustrating because they
get to deploy these these absurd little lines every once
in a while and it captures media attention, and the
physical things that they're doing do not get as much,
like awareness.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
And there's this constant I think misinterpretation as to like
this is alid distraction from this and this and this,
and it does sometimes function that way, but this isn't.
They're not doing this because it's a distraction. They're doing
this because they also hate this group of people. When
I hurt this group of people, there's a lot of
people they want to hurt, and they want to do
it in different ways.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
And they're kind of playing a longer game with the
focus on this quote unquote autopen and it remains to
be seen if it's going to be successful or you know,
pay off for them. But I do want to talk
about it now since this is on like you know,
a month, like four of them slowly seeding this into
popular discourse. It's like a new thing because every once
(04:29):
in a while they have to decide what the new
thing is. Right a few years ago, they decided it
was trans people. They decided it was DEI, they decided
it was how the twenty twenty lecture was stolen. They
just decide that there's like some major problem, and then
they repeat it often enough that it becomes like something
that seemingly a share of voters actually care about. And
(04:50):
they're trying to make autopen be a thing. And there
is actual, like possible results of them focusing on this
as we as we will see. But the autopen fixation
started this past March when Trump posted a truth on
truth Social claiming that Biden's preemptive partons of members of
the January sixth Investigation House Committee are quote hereby declared void, vacant,
(05:11):
and of no further force of effect because of the
fact that they were done by autopen unquote. Great, this
is not real. This is not this is not like
a real thing that he can disclaim on on truth Social.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
But what's real?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
You know, there is no requirement that pardons even be signed,
only that they're accepted by a subject. In nineteen twenty nine,
the Uslister General concluded in a memo that quotes, neither
the Constitution nor any statute prescribes the method by which
executive clemency shall be exercised or evidenced. So he can't
just do this here. But this was kind of the
(05:47):
opening of the door for the rest of what we're
going to talk about this episode. And I guess before
we get into that, I should talk about what an
autopen is not a bad one. Is a tool to
automate the signing of documents by replicating a signature. And
this is a machine or a type of machine that's
long been used in the White House, like Thomas Jefferson
(06:08):
bought and used an early iteration of such a device
shortly after was patented. In eighteen oh three, Lennon B.
Johnson's auto pen was photographed in the White House for
a National Inquiry or recover story titled the Robot that
Sits in for the President. And it's funny that now
you get Fox News headlines that are basically written very
similarly talking about how actually a robot for the autopen
(06:29):
itself was acting as president. And that's like a controversy,
okay Versus it was just like a fun news story
back in the fifties.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
How many of the guys angry about this literally want
an LLM to be the president? Yes, exactly, that's that's
my question.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
No, at least at least half, at least half the
other half don't know what an ll is.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Now, Obama was the first president to openly sign legislation
with an autopen, including the extension of the Patriot Act
in twenty eleven while at the G eight summit in France,
and though the constitutionality of the autopen has never been
tested or explicitly determined in court, in two thousand and five,
President George W. Bush asked the Justice Department for its
opinion on the validity of the autopen for signing legislation
(07:13):
and other official policy documents. The Office of Legal Council
found that, quote, the President need not personally perform the
physical act of fixing his signature to a bill he
approves and decides to sign in order for the bill
to become law. Rather, the President may sign a bill
by directing a subordinate to affix the president's signature to
such a bill, for example, by autopen unquote, though there
(07:34):
still is debate whether the President needs to be physically
present during this process or simply authorized the signing. And
you know, you have people like Steven Miller in this
administration who try to find niche little laws or statutes
to then apply in a way that it was probably
never designed or we have since these laws inceptions have
decided not to use the laws in that way because
(07:56):
that doesn't make sense of our current context. But someone
like Miller, very willing to do such a thing, and
there could be, for instance, some obscure aspect or interpretation
of like proxy signature laws that they could try to
like force through into their interpretation of like Article one,
section seven of the Constitution, which might make some auto
(08:17):
pen signatures invalid. But this is something that's like kind
of dismissed in a lot of legal circles because as
like a practical matter, it would be disastrous to start
rescinding executive actions based on this interpretation because like decades
and decades of laws and regulations would then fall into
question and possibly become void. So lots of people just
like kind of don't think this is like a real
(08:39):
question or a real concern, and part of me thinks
that as well. But as like someone like Miller is demonstrated,
they're absolutely willing to use like niche arguments or precedents
to do some pretty like crazy stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Do you know what is not very crazy?
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Robert paying money to the sponsors of this show.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
It's an extremely reasonable act.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
It's the only sane thing you can do. If you
do anything else, you are being fifty one to fifty,
then you'll be on an involuntary seventy two hour. Hold,
that's the way the law works.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
All right, we are back.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So with this Biden autopen thing, it's not really about
the autopen. The autopen actually is not the problem here
kind of at all. That's not what they're really focusing on.
In early June, the Justice Department launched an investigation into
Biden's alleged use of the autopen, with the DOJ pardon
attorney Ed Martin writing in an email that this investigation
(09:42):
is to determine whether Joe Biden was quote competent and
whether others were taking advantage of him through use of
the autopen or other means unquote, with a specific focus
on the primpt of pardons for members of Biden's family
and clemency for thirty seven death row inmates whose sentences
were converted to life prison. So this is the real crux,
(10:03):
whether Biden was competent and whether people were using the
autopen without his knowledge. And I think the reason why
they're starting by focusing on these pardons, whether for January
sixth investigation committee members or for those close to Biden,
like this all relates to Trump's campaign promise of like retribution, right,
you can think of cash Betel's list of deep state
actors that he wants to investigate like that was such
(10:26):
a core part of what Trump campaigned on, and he
does still seem keen on fulfilling parts of that promise.
Now Ed Martin, the DOJ pardon attorney investigating this autopen debacle, himself,
has said that the president's pardon power is absolute and
that using the autopen is quote not necessarily a problem.
(10:49):
But I think that the core part here is that
it's not about the autopen itself. It's about this secret
cabal who are using the autopen without Biden's knowledge. So
a few days after this investigation was announced, White House
released a public memo from Trump entitled reviewing Certain Presidential Actions,
which ordered the Attorney General and the White House Council
to investigate quote whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the
(11:11):
public about Biden's mental state and unconstitutionally exercise to the
authorities and responsibilities of the president. And this document reads
like something I would read on like a conspiracy theory
website five years ago. It's written in a very similar style.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
President Biden's aides abused the power of presidential signatures through
the use of an auto pen to conceal Biden's cognitive
decline and assert article to authority. This conspiracy marks one
of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history.
The American public was purposely shielded from discovering who wielded
the executive power, all while Biden's signature was deployed across
(11:49):
thousands of documents to affect radical policy shifts. Unquote. The
memo states that Biden's advisors quot unquote tried to hide
the true extent of his mental decline to quote cover
up his inability to discharge his duties. The investigation specifically
wants to look into which policy documents were signed via
(12:11):
auto pen and who ordered the President's signature to be
a fixed to said documents. One other quote from the
memo quote the White House issued over twelve hundred presidential documents,
appointed two hundred and thirty five judges to the federal bench,
and issued more pardons and commutations than any administration in
United States history. Although the authority to take these executive actions,
(12:34):
along with many others, is constitutionally committed to the president,
there are serious doubts as to the decision making process
and even the degree of Biden's awareness of these actions
being taken in his name, given clear indications that President
Biden lacked the capacity to exercise its presidential authority, if
his advisors secretly used the mechanical signature pen to conceal
(12:54):
this incapacity while taking radical executive actions all in his name,
that would constitute and unconstitutional wielding of the power of
the presidency, a circumstance that would have implications for the
legality and validity of numerous executive actions undertaken in Biden's
name unquote. So though the two thousand and five Bush
(13:15):
DOJ memo does support the use of the autopen to
a fix the president's signature, obviously it still must be
the president who decides to sign a document, with the
Office of Legal Counsel, memo state in quote, we do
not question the substantial authority supporting the view that the
president must personally decide whether to approve and sign bills.
This is pretty obvious, and that's why so much of
(13:37):
the autopen investigations are around Biden's deteriorating mental state and
not the autopen itself. It's about trying to prove whether
Biden was either not mentally capable of sufficiently authorizing a
signature to be affixed to certain documents, or was just
completely unaware that the autopen was signing certain documents with
White House advisors specifically covering up Biden's mental decline to
(13:58):
take advantage of his compromise date to personally direct policy.
And that's what the investigations are going to try to prove.
The White House is already making repeated assertions that this
was the case, and this question may be finally settled
in a Trump sympathetic court, and Republicans are currently trying
every angle of attack on this. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson
(14:21):
has started a Senate investigation and a House Oversight Committee
investigation is already up and running. The past month, Kentucky
Republican James Comer has been subpoena ing Biden admin officials
to testify on the use of the auto pen and
Biden's mental faculties while in office. Comer's own letters and
(14:42):
subpoenas for this investigation have been signed with a digital signature,
because this is such a common practice in Washington and
like all over the country. Now, try to think of
all the official documents you sign on your computer, right yeah. Now,
metadata from a subpoena cover letter sent to former Senior
adviser to the First Lady, Anthony Bernal showed the document
(15:02):
was authored and signed by someone named Benzene, an Oversight
Committee staffer, not James Comer, because again, this is pretty regular,
so even the investigators are doing this process themselves while
doing the investigation. Part of the reason why the Republicans
are trying to make this a continuing story and not
just about, you know, the pardons, is because as like
(15:24):
Biden appointee judges began blocking Trump's executive orders, the focus
on the auto pen turned from just pardons towards use
of the autopen to nominate federal judges. And this is
where things get a lot more slippery. Last month, Fox
News asked House Overside Committee Chairman James Comer if not
(15:46):
just pardons may be found to be null and void
because of the results of this investigation, but possibly also
judicial appointments.
Speaker 8 (15:54):
Biden made two hundred and twenty eight judicial appointments, including
forty five Appeals court and one hundred and eighty seven
District court judges, and most importantly, Biden appointed Justice Kachanji
Brown Jackson. The Court's most long winded justice who couldn't
even define what a woman is. Mister Chairman, you mentioned
that you're looking at some of the pardons that were
(16:15):
done under President Biden and the use of the autopen
doctor Fauci being one of them, talking about whether they
were legitimate or not. Are you also looking into Biden's
judicial appointments as.
Speaker 9 (16:25):
Well, Absolutely everything that was signed with the autopan, especially
in the last year of the Biden presidency. This is
when all the books that are being written, all the
tell all interviews that are being recorded from his former
disgruntled staffers and staffords who are trying to preserve the
(16:45):
reputation for future employment. They're all saying that Joe Biden
was in a deep mental decline and that he was
protected by a very small inner circle. We brought a
few of those people on the inner circle and ask
them simple questions like were you ever told to lie
about the President's health? And they couldn't answer that question
(17:06):
that had to plead the fifth to avoid self incrimination.
This raises an issue whether these pardons, whether these judicial appointments,
and whether these executive orders are legal. I believe that
if this investigation keeps going in the way that it's going.
That's going to a very serious concerns about whether or
not Joe Biden even you what was going on around him,
(17:26):
much less whether he authorized the use of his signature
on all of this stuff. I think all of these
are in jeopardy of being declared null and void in
a court of law. And that's a big deal for
the Trump administration because so much of what Trump is
up against in court now with these liberal biased Biden
appointed judges is the fact that they're using and citing
(17:48):
some of these executive orders as reason to throw out
President Trump's agenda and President Trump's executive orders. So they
tried to Trump proof the administration on the way out
the door. And the problem they got now is the
American people realize that Joe Biden wasn't the one calling
the shots, and he may very well have not even
(18:09):
been mentally fit to make decisions to authorize the use
of his autopinion, if he even authorized it. So this
is going to play out in a court of law.
I think our investigation is going to be a substantial
part of evidence in it, and that's why we're doing
the investigation.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Yeah, that's that's the rub right there. That's exactly what
they want, right is to completely peel back the last
administration or two of judges and make it just be
all their people, a whole justice system that they completely control.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
If they could recall like two hundred and thirty federal judges, yeah,
and fill in two hundred and thirty more like Trump
appointed judges, that would clear out so much of the
legal roadblocks that they're currently fac there.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And that is the real crux of their focus on
this issue. That's why they're trying to like insert this
into real and they're throwing this autopen story like everywhere.
Even the Epstein files, which don't exist, were concocted by
the ever suspicious Autopen.
Speaker 5 (19:10):
It's a hoax that's been built up way beyond proportion.
I can say this, Those files were run by the
worst come on earth. They were run by Komi, they
were run by Garland, they were run by Biden and
all of the people that actually ran the government, including
the Autopen.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Whatever the current big news story is, they're going to
try to shove the Autopen in there because that's how
they operate, that's how they craft reality.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Okay, we are back.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
So, needless to say, Biden and his advisors have denied
all of this. And it's a little tricky because part
of what this story slightly compelling for Trump's team is
that obviously Biden's mental health was in decline for the
past few years of his presidency.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
We all saw that happen.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
That is like a accepted part of our country's history. Now,
we all saw the debate, and so much of their
argument for this is resting on how much everyone understands
that you have a whole bunch of former White House
staff writing books on this topic now. So with that
aspect in mind, they still have to defend the use
(20:30):
of the autopen and Biden's competency and awareness of all
of the decisions being made to do this. Last month,
had his first interview with The New York Times since
like twenty twenty one, where he discussed how he gave
oral authorization for all of the pardons with the autopen
operation specifically being managed by the Staff Secretary Stephene Feldman.
(20:51):
He said, quote, I made every decision. Biden said that
the White House used the autopen specifically for the last
batch of pardons. Biden said that they used the autopen
because of the high number of pardon warrants issued totaling
around four thousand, which affected three categories of federal convicts,
people serving home confinement, non violent drug offenders, and people
(21:11):
on death row. He did not choose or prove like
every single name on that list, but claims to have
determined the criteria and categories, saying.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Quote, I was deeply involved.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I laid out a strategy how I want to go
about these dealing with pardons and commutations. I pulled the
team in to say this is how I want to
get it done generically and then specifically unquote. In preparation
for the final months of the Biden presidency, his White
House counsel wrote an email to staff in November of
twenty twenty four, laying with the process for reviewing pardons,
(21:45):
the last step being quote the President makes the final
decision on the final pardon and or the commutation slate unquote.
At this point, around a dozen people have been subpoenaed
and are giving testimony, and the investigation is looking through
emails from the time, specifically starting with these pardons, because
I think that's the only way they have to like
(22:05):
investigate this right now, it's easier to investigate the pardons
from the last three months the presidency than just all
of the documents assigned over the course of like four years,
or even just two years if you look at like
the past two years of his presidency. So specifically, they're
focusing on the final pardons as like a way in
to figure out the process for how the auto pen
was functioning and who was using it, and they may
(22:27):
try to extend that process out to things like judicial
appointments over time. I think trying to rescind the appointment
of someone like a Supreme Court justice very unlikely because
obviously Biden had awareness that that was going on. But
they might try to pull more fucky shit with the
you know, circuit court appointments or that kind of stuff.
(22:47):
I don't think this is like the most important story
facing the country right now. Obviously, the stuff going on
in Washington, d C. And many other aspects of how
the Trump administration is operating with Ice and with trans
people affects people more immediately. But I've been specifically trying
to pull information on how they're crafting this narrative around
(23:09):
the autopan ever since he made that first truth back
in March, because I saw this as a ongoing reality
crafting project which might accumulate in something actually meaningful over time.
And none of these investigations have released their findings yet,
and they're not expected to for at least a few
more weeks to months, But it's something that I think
(23:29):
is worth keeping an eye on right now, especially considering
you know, Miller and others and like the Heritage Foundations,
focus on trying to find niche loopholes in which executive
power can be really exercised. And if one of the
ways to remove some of the roadblocks towards this president's
executive power is to undermine the executive power of a
(23:49):
previous administration, it would be the first time we see
that strategy actually enacted. And it sounds like kind of cartoonish,
but that's so much of what they're currently doing is
pushing everything to that extreme, trying to test all of
these more niche theories that you see people talking about
in the past, Like around twenty eleven, when Obama first
(24:11):
signed legislation with the autopen you had a whole bunch
of libertarians complaining that this is unconstitutional because he wasn't
physically present when the document was being signed, and so
you have like think pieces on that at the time
that then kind of get memory hold, and now you're
going to see some of those justifications back again and
(24:31):
actually try to test them out in court, especially if
you have a Justice Department investigation, you have an Attorney
General investigation, of a cent an investigation, and a House investigation.
If one of those can stumble onto or develop or
invent some compelling argument, we will actually see versions of
this complaint be tested in a way that we never
have before, because it would be like disastrous to the
(24:53):
functional aspect of this state if you determined that all
presidential documents signed the autopen are not bad and unless
presidents in the room, that would be a massive domino
tipping over which you know, most reasonable people who work
in government, like elder statesmen, are not gonna want to
do that because that sounds like a fucking nightmare, like
legally speaking, and it would be like disastrous, like it
(25:16):
would destroy some fundamental aspects of the government. But right now,
destroying aspects of government is kind of the point. That's
what we saw with Doge. That's what we saw during
the first few months of the presidency. Using this kind
of tech startup thought process behind running a government. You
have to break things first so that you can rebuild
it in a way that suits you better. And if
(25:36):
that means stripping away two hundred federal judges to put
in two hundred of your own, that would have massive
benefits for them. And I think that's part of why
they're having this focus right now. Oh yeah, that's kind
of all.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
I have on that. So once you have some some
some closing thoughts.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
No, I mean, of course, this is the game as
laid out in not just Project twenty twenty five, but
what the right has been talking about my entire life. Like,
none of this should be surprising if you've been paying attention.
The only reason why some people are surprised is that
there's folks in the democratic hierarchy who have been saying
for years, this isn't really what conservatives want. This is
(26:15):
just a fringe, right.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
There is no fringe anymore.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
They'll never actually do this. They can't do this, the
system doesn't work that way. There's just been this belief
that this can't happen, right, it can't happen, or that
like if it did, obviously you know the cops will
stop them. The FBI will stop them, the army will
stop them. And there's a reason why they've went out
(26:38):
of their way to gain control of all of those
organizations before doing this. So yeah, I mean you cannot.
We either pretend that someone's going to stop them and
you don't have to worry about it, or just accept
that we are where we are and there may be
some unprecedented things that need to be done. Yep, that's
(27:00):
all I'll say. Legally, that's all I should say.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
That's the episode. Bye bye everyone, Okay, cool.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is it could happen here, the show about things
falling apart.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
One thing falling apart last year.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I guess the president's mental health seemingly so, and we're
going to talk about that today and some possible ramifications
that the current president may be trying to exploit to
help him out. Robert Evans, Hello, how are you?
Speaker 4 (00:28):
I'm fine? Is something wrong with the president?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
The current one or the old one?
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Any president ever? Has a president ever done wrong?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I heard some nasty things about mister Clinton.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Interesting. I woke up today for the first time, so
this is all new to me.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Just don't look on like the news or the internet
or anything, and it should be.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Okay, that's good. I'm just going to start reading Wikipedia
at the A section and see if I get to
anything bad about a president.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
So since taking office, Trump is actually sort of been
going soft on old sleepy Joe, not out of the
goodness of his own heart, right, but to possibly explore
legal options to get around some of the roadblocks Trump's
been facing in the judicial branch.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Trump's been arguing that Biden himself was mostly absent, especially
during the later half of his presidency, and a sort
of like secret cabal of cabinet members, DNC consultants, white
House staff, and aids were running a shadow presidency.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Yeah, and one of my constant takes is there are
no secret cabals. There's a lot of cabals. They're all
very obvious, very public, very public cabals.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
But this secret cabal of like DNC interns, we're using
Biden's signature via auto pen to set policy, make judicial appointments,
and sign orders, all with little to zero awareness from
poor old six b Joe. In fact, people around Biden
intentionally covered up his declining health to continue using his
(02:06):
presidential power for their own progressive agenda.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
If only they'd used it for that, and not just
to keep getting.
Speaker 6 (02:13):
Paychecks or sending bombs to Israel, or sending bombs to
Israel many of the other, many of the other things
that Biden seem to preoccupied with. I would have play
a clip from a month and a half ago Donald Trump,
current president, explaining this conspiracy of the secret Joe Biden cabal.
Speaker 7 (02:33):
I'm sure that he didn't know many of the things. Look,
he was never for open borders, he was never for
transgender for everybody, he was never for men playing in
women's sports. I mean he changed, I mean all of
these things that changed so radically. I don't think he
had any idea that what was Frankly, I said it
during the debate and I say it now. He didn't
(02:53):
have much of an idea what was going on.
Speaker 5 (02:57):
He shouldn't be.
Speaker 7 (02:57):
I mean, essentially, whoever used the auto was the president, and.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
That is wrong.
Speaker 7 (03:03):
It's illegal, it's so bad, and it's so disrespectful to
our country.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Transgender for everybody. The defining legacy of the Biden era,
sure is his core policy platform.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yeah, okay, I don't know, Like, what do you even
say at this point? Right, Like, honestly, he's sending troops
into the second major city, this one the capital, and
taking over control of the police force. How much is
it worth just being like oh and he said another
thing that's not true, Like I know it's important to
cover all this, but also like, man, I'm tired.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Oh yeah, no, it's it's it's incredibly frustrating because they
get to deploy these these absurd little lines every once
in a while and it captures media attention, and the
physical things that they're doing do not get as much,
like awareness.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
And there's this constant I think misinterpretation as to like
this is alid distraction from this and this and this,
and it does sometimes function that way, but this isn't.
They're not doing this because it's a distraction. They're doing
this because they also hate this group of people. When
I hurt this group of people, there's a lot of
people they want to hurt, and they want to do
it in different ways.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
And they're kind of playing a longer game with the
focus on this quote unquote autopen and it remains to
be seen if it's going to be successful or you know,
pay off for them. But I do want to talk
about it now since this is on like you know,
a month, like four of them slowly seeding this into
popular discourse. It's like a new thing because every once
(04:29):
in a while they have to decide what the new
thing is. Right a few years ago, they decided it
was trans people. They decided it was DEI, they decided
it was how the twenty twenty lecture was stolen. They
just decide that there's like some major problem, and then
they repeat it often enough that it becomes like something
that seemingly a share of voters actually care about. And
(04:50):
they're trying to make autopen be a thing. And there
is actual, like possible results of them focusing on this
as we as we will see. But the autopen fixation
started this past March when Trump posted a truth on
truth Social claiming that Biden's preemptive partons of members of
the January sixth Investigation House Committee are quote hereby declared void, vacant,
(05:11):
and of no further force of effect because of the
fact that they were done by autopen unquote. Great, this
is not real. This is not this is not like
a real thing that he can disclaim on on truth Social.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
But what's real?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
You know, there is no requirement that pardons even be signed,
only that they're accepted by a subject. In nineteen twenty nine,
the Uslister General concluded in a memo that quotes, neither
the Constitution nor any statute prescribes the method by which
executive clemency shall be exercised or evidenced. So he can't
just do this here. But this was kind of the
(05:47):
opening of the door for the rest of what we're
going to talk about this episode. And I guess before
we get into that, I should talk about what an
autopen is not a bad one. Is a tool to
automate the signing of documents by replicating a signature. And
this is a machine or a type of machine that's
long been used in the White House, like Thomas Jefferson
(06:08):
bought and used an early iteration of such a device
shortly after was patented. In eighteen oh three, Lennon B.
Johnson's auto pen was photographed in the White House for
a National Inquiry or recover story titled the Robot that
Sits in for the President. And it's funny that now
you get Fox News headlines that are basically written very
similarly talking about how actually a robot for the autopen
(06:29):
itself was acting as president. And that's like a controversy,
okay Versus it was just like a fun news story
back in the fifties.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
How many of the guys angry about this literally want
an LLM to be the president? Yes, exactly, that's that's
my question.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
No, at least at least half, at least half the
other half don't know what an ll is.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Now, Obama was the first president to openly sign legislation
with an autopen, including the extension of the Patriot Act
in twenty eleven while at the G eight summit in France,
and though the constitutionality of the autopen has never been
tested or explicitly determined in court, in two thousand and five,
President George W. Bush asked the Justice Department for its
opinion on the validity of the autopen for signing legislation
(07:13):
and other official policy documents. The Office of Legal Council
found that, quote, the President need not personally perform the
physical act of fixing his signature to a bill he
approves and decides to sign in order for the bill
to become law. Rather, the President may sign a bill
by directing a subordinate to affix the president's signature to
such a bill, for example, by autopen unquote, though there
(07:34):
still is debate whether the President needs to be physically
present during this process or simply authorized the signing. And
you know, you have people like Steven Miller in this
administration who try to find niche little laws or statutes
to then apply in a way that it was probably
never designed or we have since these laws inceptions have
decided not to use the laws in that way because
(07:56):
that doesn't make sense of our current context. But someone
like Miller, very willing to do such a thing, and
there could be, for instance, some obscure aspect or interpretation
of like proxy signature laws that they could try to
like force through into their interpretation of like Article one,
section seven of the Constitution, which might make some auto
(08:17):
pen signatures invalid. But this is something that's like kind
of dismissed in a lot of legal circles because as
like a practical matter, it would be disastrous to start
rescinding executive actions based on this interpretation because like decades
and decades of laws and regulations would then fall into
question and possibly become void. So lots of people just
like kind of don't think this is like a real
(08:39):
question or a real concern, and part of me thinks
that as well. But as like someone like Miller is demonstrated,
they're absolutely willing to use like niche arguments or precedents
to do some pretty like crazy stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Do you know what is not very crazy?
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Robert paying money to the sponsors of this show.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
It's an extremely reasonable act.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
It's the only sane thing you can do. If you
do anything else, you are being fifty one to fifty,
then you'll be on an involuntary seventy two hour. Hold,
that's the way the law works.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
All right, we are back.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So with this Biden autopen thing, it's not really about
the autopen. The autopen actually is not the problem here
kind of at all. That's not what they're really focusing on.
In early June, the Justice Department launched an investigation into
Biden's alleged use of the autopen, with the DOJ pardon
attorney Ed Martin writing in an email that this investigation
(09:42):
is to determine whether Joe Biden was quote competent and
whether others were taking advantage of him through use of
the autopen or other means unquote, with a specific focus
on the primpt of pardons for members of Biden's family
and clemency for thirty seven death row inmates whose sentences
were converted to life prison. So this is the real crux,
(10:03):
whether Biden was competent and whether people were using the
autopen without his knowledge. And I think the reason why
they're starting by focusing on these pardons, whether for January
sixth investigation committee members or for those close to Biden,
like this all relates to Trump's campaign promise of like retribution, right,
you can think of cash Betel's list of deep state
actors that he wants to investigate like that was such
(10:26):
a core part of what Trump campaigned on, and he
does still seem keen on fulfilling parts of that promise.
Now Ed Martin, the DOJ pardon attorney investigating this autopen debacle, himself,
has said that the president's pardon power is absolute and
that using the autopen is quote not necessarily a problem.
(10:49):
But I think that the core part here is that
it's not about the autopen itself. It's about this secret
cabal who are using the autopen without Biden's knowledge. So
a few days after this investigation was announced, White House
released a public memo from Trump entitled reviewing Certain Presidential Actions,
which ordered the Attorney General and the White House Council
to investigate quote whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the
(11:11):
public about Biden's mental state and unconstitutionally exercise to the
authorities and responsibilities of the president. And this document reads
like something I would read on like a conspiracy theory
website five years ago. It's written in a very similar style.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
President Biden's aides abused the power of presidential signatures through
the use of an auto pen to conceal Biden's cognitive
decline and assert article to authority. This conspiracy marks one
of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history.
The American public was purposely shielded from discovering who wielded
the executive power, all while Biden's signature was deployed across
(11:49):
thousands of documents to affect radical policy shifts. Unquote. The
memo states that Biden's advisors quot unquote tried to hide
the true extent of his mental decline to quote cover
up his inability to discharge his duties. The investigation specifically
wants to look into which policy documents were signed via
(12:11):
auto pen and who ordered the President's signature to be
a fixed to said documents. One other quote from the
memo quote the White House issued over twelve hundred presidential documents,
appointed two hundred and thirty five judges to the federal bench,
and issued more pardons and commutations than any administration in
United States history. Although the authority to take these executive actions,
(12:34):
along with many others, is constitutionally committed to the president,
there are serious doubts as to the decision making process
and even the degree of Biden's awareness of these actions
being taken in his name, given clear indications that President
Biden lacked the capacity to exercise its presidential authority, if
his advisors secretly used the mechanical signature pen to conceal
(12:54):
this incapacity while taking radical executive actions all in his name,
that would constitute and unconstitutional wielding of the power of
the presidency, a circumstance that would have implications for the
legality and validity of numerous executive actions undertaken in Biden's
name unquote. So though the two thousand and five Bush
(13:15):
DOJ memo does support the use of the autopen to
a fix the president's signature, obviously it still must be
the president who decides to sign a document, with the
Office of Legal Counsel, memo state in quote, we do
not question the substantial authority supporting the view that the
president must personally decide whether to approve and sign bills.
This is pretty obvious, and that's why so much of
(13:37):
the autopen investigations are around Biden's deteriorating mental state and
not the autopen itself. It's about trying to prove whether
Biden was either not mentally capable of sufficiently authorizing a
signature to be affixed to certain documents, or was just
completely unaware that the autopen was signing certain documents with
White House advisors specifically covering up Biden's mental decline to
(13:58):
take advantage of his compromise date to personally direct policy.
And that's what the investigations are going to try to prove.
The White House is already making repeated assertions that this
was the case, and this question may be finally settled
in a Trump sympathetic court, and Republicans are currently trying
every angle of attack on this. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson
(14:21):
has started a Senate investigation and a House Oversight Committee
investigation is already up and running. The past month, Kentucky
Republican James Comer has been subpoena ing Biden admin officials
to testify on the use of the auto pen and
Biden's mental faculties while in office. Comer's own letters and
(14:42):
subpoenas for this investigation have been signed with a digital signature,
because this is such a common practice in Washington and
like all over the country. Now, try to think of
all the official documents you sign on your computer, right yeah. Now,
metadata from a subpoena cover letter sent to former Senior
adviser to the First Lady, Anthony Bernal showed the document
(15:02):
was authored and signed by someone named Benzene, an Oversight
Committee staffer, not James Comer, because again, this is pretty regular,
so even the investigators are doing this process themselves while
doing the investigation. Part of the reason why the Republicans
are trying to make this a continuing story and not
just about, you know, the pardons, is because as like
(15:24):
Biden appointee judges began blocking Trump's executive orders, the focus
on the auto pen turned from just pardons towards use
of the autopen to nominate federal judges. And this is
where things get a lot more slippery. Last month, Fox
News asked House Overside Committee Chairman James Comer if not
(15:46):
just pardons may be found to be null and void
because of the results of this investigation, but possibly also
judicial appointments.
Speaker 8 (15:54):
Biden made two hundred and twenty eight judicial appointments, including
forty five Appeals court and one hundred and eighty seven
District court judges, and most importantly, Biden appointed Justice Kachanji
Brown Jackson. The Court's most long winded justice who couldn't
even define what a woman is. Mister Chairman, you mentioned
that you're looking at some of the pardons that were
(16:15):
done under President Biden and the use of the autopen
doctor Fauci being one of them, talking about whether they
were legitimate or not. Are you also looking into Biden's
judicial appointments as.
Speaker 9 (16:25):
Well, Absolutely everything that was signed with the autopan, especially
in the last year of the Biden presidency. This is
when all the books that are being written, all the
tell all interviews that are being recorded from his former
disgruntled staffers and staffords who are trying to preserve the
(16:45):
reputation for future employment. They're all saying that Joe Biden
was in a deep mental decline and that he was
protected by a very small inner circle. We brought a
few of those people on the inner circle and ask
them simple questions like were you ever told to lie
about the President's health? And they couldn't answer that question
(17:06):
that had to plead the fifth to avoid self incrimination.
This raises an issue whether these pardons, whether these judicial appointments,
and whether these executive orders are legal. I believe that
if this investigation keeps going in the way that it's going.
That's going to a very serious concerns about whether or
not Joe Biden even you what was going on around him,
(17:26):
much less whether he authorized the use of his signature
on all of this stuff. I think all of these
are in jeopardy of being declared null and void in
a court of law. And that's a big deal for
the Trump administration because so much of what Trump is
up against in court now with these liberal biased Biden
appointed judges is the fact that they're using and citing
(17:48):
some of these executive orders as reason to throw out
President Trump's agenda and President Trump's executive orders. So they
tried to Trump proof the administration on the way out
the door. And the problem they got now is the
American people realize that Joe Biden wasn't the one calling
the shots, and he may very well have not even
(18:09):
been mentally fit to make decisions to authorize the use
of his autopinion, if he even authorized it. So this
is going to play out in a court of law.
I think our investigation is going to be a substantial
part of evidence in it, and that's why we're doing
the investigation.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Yeah, that's that's the rub right there. That's exactly what
they want, right is to completely peel back the last
administration or two of judges and make it just be
all their people, a whole justice system that they completely control.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
If they could recall like two hundred and thirty federal judges, yeah,
and fill in two hundred and thirty more like Trump
appointed judges, that would clear out so much of the
legal roadblocks that they're currently fac there.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And that is the real crux of their focus on
this issue. That's why they're trying to like insert this
into real and they're throwing this autopen story like everywhere.
Even the Epstein files, which don't exist, were concocted by
the ever suspicious Autopen.
Speaker 5 (19:10):
It's a hoax that's been built up way beyond proportion.
I can say this, Those files were run by the
worst come on earth. They were run by Komi, they
were run by Garland, they were run by Biden and
all of the people that actually ran the government, including
the Autopen.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Whatever the current big news story is, they're going to
try to shove the Autopen in there because that's how
they operate, that's how they craft reality.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Okay, we are back.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
So, needless to say, Biden and his advisors have denied
all of this. And it's a little tricky because part
of what this story slightly compelling for Trump's team is
that obviously Biden's mental health was in decline for the
past few years of his presidency.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
We all saw that happen.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
That is like a accepted part of our country's history. Now,
we all saw the debate, and so much of their
argument for this is resting on how much everyone understands
that you have a whole bunch of former White House
staff writing books on this topic now. So with that
aspect in mind, they still have to defend the use
(20:30):
of the autopen and Biden's competency and awareness of all
of the decisions being made to do this. Last month,
had his first interview with The New York Times since
like twenty twenty one, where he discussed how he gave
oral authorization for all of the pardons with the autopen
operation specifically being managed by the Staff Secretary Stephene Feldman.
(20:51):
He said, quote, I made every decision. Biden said that
the White House used the autopen specifically for the last
batch of pardons. Biden said that they used the autopen
because of the high number of pardon warrants issued totaling
around four thousand, which affected three categories of federal convicts,
people serving home confinement, non violent drug offenders, and people
(21:11):
on death row. He did not choose or prove like
every single name on that list, but claims to have
determined the criteria and categories, saying.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Quote, I was deeply involved.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I laid out a strategy how I want to go
about these dealing with pardons and commutations. I pulled the
team in to say this is how I want to
get it done generically and then specifically unquote. In preparation
for the final months of the Biden presidency, his White
House counsel wrote an email to staff in November of
twenty twenty four, laying with the process for reviewing pardons,
(21:45):
the last step being quote the President makes the final
decision on the final pardon and or the commutation slate unquote.
At this point, around a dozen people have been subpoenaed
and are giving testimony, and the investigation is looking through
emails from the time, specifically starting with these pardons, because
I think that's the only way they have to like
(22:05):
investigate this right now, it's easier to investigate the pardons
from the last three months the presidency than just all
of the documents assigned over the course of like four years,
or even just two years if you look at like
the past two years of his presidency. So specifically, they're
focusing on the final pardons as like a way in
to figure out the process for how the auto pen
was functioning and who was using it, and they may
(22:27):
try to extend that process out to things like judicial
appointments over time. I think trying to rescind the appointment
of someone like a Supreme Court justice very unlikely because
obviously Biden had awareness that that was going on. But
they might try to pull more fucky shit with the
you know, circuit court appointments or that kind of stuff.
(22:47):
I don't think this is like the most important story
facing the country right now. Obviously, the stuff going on
in Washington, d C. And many other aspects of how
the Trump administration is operating with Ice and with trans
people affects people more immediately. But I've been specifically trying
to pull information on how they're crafting this narrative around
(23:09):
the autopan ever since he made that first truth back
in March, because I saw this as a ongoing reality
crafting project which might accumulate in something actually meaningful over time.
And none of these investigations have released their findings yet,
and they're not expected to for at least a few
more weeks to months, But it's something that I think
(23:29):
is worth keeping an eye on right now, especially considering
you know, Miller and others and like the Heritage Foundations,
focus on trying to find niche loopholes in which executive
power can be really exercised. And if one of the
ways to remove some of the roadblocks towards this president's
executive power is to undermine the executive power of a
(23:49):
previous administration, it would be the first time we see
that strategy actually enacted. And it sounds like kind of cartoonish,
but that's so much of what they're currently doing is
pushing everything to that extreme, trying to test all of
these more niche theories that you see people talking about
in the past, Like around twenty eleven, when Obama first
(24:11):
signed legislation with the autopen you had a whole bunch
of libertarians complaining that this is unconstitutional because he wasn't
physically present when the document was being signed, and so
you have like think pieces on that at the time
that then kind of get memory hold, and now you're
going to see some of those justifications back again and
(24:31):
actually try to test them out in court, especially if
you have a Justice Department investigation, you have an Attorney
General investigation, of a cent an investigation, and a House investigation.
If one of those can stumble onto or develop or
invent some compelling argument, we will actually see versions of
this complaint be tested in a way that we never
have before, because it would be like disastrous to the
(24:53):
functional aspect of this state if you determined that all
presidential documents signed the autopen are not bad and unless
presidents in the room, that would be a massive domino
tipping over which you know, most reasonable people who work
in government, like elder statesmen, are not gonna want to
do that because that sounds like a fucking nightmare, like
legally speaking, and it would be like disastrous, like it
(25:16):
would destroy some fundamental aspects of the government. But right now,
destroying aspects of government is kind of the point. That's
what we saw with Doge. That's what we saw during
the first few months of the presidency. Using this kind
of tech startup thought process behind running a government. You
have to break things first so that you can rebuild
it in a way that suits you better. And if
(25:36):
that means stripping away two hundred federal judges to put
in two hundred of your own, that would have massive
benefits for them. And I think that's part of why
they're having this focus right now. Oh yeah, that's kind
of all.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
I have on that. So once you have some some
some closing thoughts.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
No, I mean, of course, this is the game as
laid out in not just Project twenty twenty five, but
what the right has been talking about my entire life. Like,
none of this should be surprising if you've been paying attention.
The only reason why some people are surprised is that
there's folks in the democratic hierarchy who have been saying
for years, this isn't really what conservatives want. This is
(26:15):
just a fringe, right.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
There is no fringe anymore.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
They'll never actually do this. They can't do this, the
system doesn't work that way. There's just been this belief
that this can't happen, right, it can't happen, or that
like if it did, obviously you know the cops will
stop them. The FBI will stop them, the army will
stop them. And there's a reason why they've went out
(26:38):
of their way to gain control of all of those
organizations before doing this. So yeah, I mean you cannot.
We either pretend that someone's going to stop them and
you don't have to worry about it, or just accept
that we are where we are and there may be
some unprecedented things that need to be done. Yep, that's
(27:00):
all I'll say. Legally, that's all I should say.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
That's the episode. Bye bye everyone, Okay, cool.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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It Could Happen Here News
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Garrison Davis
James Stout
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