Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., stated Monday that additional details are expected to emerge regarding the autopen scandal involving President Joe Biden, along with potential efforts to revise the 25th Amendment procedures for addressing a president who is mentally incapacitated.
The House Oversight Committee is investigating allegations of a cover-up concerning President Biden’s cognitive decline and his reported use of an autopen to authorize major executive actions and commutations.
According to Department of Justice records, Biden has issued over 4,000 pardons and commutations. In comparison, Barack Obama granted just under 2,000 over his two terms, while George W. Bush issued only about 200 during his presidency.
“I think what you’re going to find is that Joe Biden was a wanderer in the White House, [and] that there was no communication with anybody else of authority,” Biggs said on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast. “I’m talking about cabinet-level officials. All this is starting to be revealed there.”
He went on to say that it’s very likely that Biden had no idea who was using the autopen and for what purposes. “What else is going to happen is you’re going to find that Joe Biden didn’t know who all was running the autopen,” he said. “I think you’re going to find out that people were doing some things with the autopen that they absolutely had no authority to do.”
Biggs, who has participated in interviews with former Biden aides, suggested that there could also be potential criminal liability involved. He also said that the 25th Amendment should potentially be revamped following what he has learned from conversations with the Biden aides, Just the News added.
Section 1 of the 25th Amendment stipulates that if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office through impeachment, the vice president shall assume the presidency. The U.S. Constitution allows amendments to be proposed either by a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate or through a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures.
“I also think you’re going to need to revamp the 25th Amendment, because the way it is now, it incentivizes Cabinet members to protect and hide a debilitated president,” Bigg said.
“I know we’re going to be told that we have a separation of powers issue, but I do think that you can finesse that and get that through and say, ‘Look, there has to be some kind of communication to Congress about the parameters of how the presidency is using the autopen,'” Biggs said. “Otherwise, that’s an abuse of separation of powers.”
