President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is reviewing a list of pardons issued by former President Joe Biden, amid growing scrutiny over Biden’s use of an AutoPen to sign documents and questions surrounding his mental fitness in the final months of his term.
According to Fox News, Justice Department Pardon Attorney Ed Martin is examining pardons granted during Biden’s last weeks in office. While it remains unclear which specific cases are under review, Reuters reported that the probe will likely include Biden’s preemptive pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, and the commutations of over 35 death row inmates whose sentences were reduced to life imprisonment in his final days as president.
The pardon for Hunter dated back to the beginning of 2014, around the time he began employment as a board member for Burisma, a large Ukrainian energy firm, for tens of thousands of dollars per month. Critics said Hunter was given the job as a means of influencing his then-vice president father. Then-President Obama gave Joe Biden Ukraine to ‘oversee’ as the country was undergoing tumultuous times.
In his final weeks in office, former President Biden issued clemency and pardons to more than 1,500 individuals, a move the White House touted as the largest single-day act of clemency in U.S. presidential history.
However, the sweeping action drew sharp criticism, particularly over the inclusion of individuals convicted of defrauding U.S. taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars. Critics also pointed to Biden’s use of preemptive pardons for family members and close associates, raising concerns about favoritism and accountability, Fox News reported.
A nonprofit organization has also raised serious concerns about several climate change-related executive orders issued by Biden.
Power the Future, founded by energy expert Daniel Turner, released a report earlier this week outlining what it describes as “troubling” aspects of Biden’s executive actions. The former president’s use of autopen technology to sign numerous executive orders and pardons has drawn heightened scrutiny and prompted a formal investigation by the Department of Justice.
The new report builds on findings from a March report by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. That review examined “every document we could find with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency” and concluded that all of them featured the same autopen-generated signature.
