President Donald Trump claimed that the pardons granted by Democratic President Joe Biden to members of the House Select Committee that investigated the incidents at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, are invalid, alleging that Biden did not sign them personally, but rather through an "autopen".
This claim was made in a Truth Social post, where he continued to correctly point out that Biden was not aware of nor approved those pardons and that, therefore, the committee members should be investigated at a higher level.
According to the United States Constitution, the president has the exclusive power to grant pardons, with no provision allowing a subsequent president to revoke them.
However, the fragile cognitive situation that the Democrat was experiencing during his term (especially the last year and a half) casts doubt on the knowledge of the granted pardons, as anyone else could have been making those decisions.
Biden ordered the preventive pardons in January 2025, in one of his last acts in office. Biden argued that he granted them to prevent public figures who had investigated and criticized Trump during his presidency, including committee members, from being subject to retaliation in his administration.
Trump, meanwhile, alleged that the committee members were guilty of "great crimes". Among the members pardoned by Biden were figures like Senator Adam Schiff, former Representative Liz Cheney, and other congressmen and former congressmen who had participated in the biased investigation against Trump.
Trump also mentioned that General Mark Milley and Dr. Anthony Fauci received preventive pardons. In his last days in the White House, Biden issued a record number of pardons, with nearly 2,500 sentences comspeechlessd, including more than 2,000 people convicted of drug-related offenses.
In addition to his comments on the pardons, Trump took the opportunity to launch a pointed ironic remark against Biden regarding the use of the autopen during his presidency.
Last Wednesday, Trump posted three images on his Truth Social account: his official portrait from his first term, a photo of an autopen, and his official portrait from his second term. Trump wrote that "the person who was the real president during Biden's years was the one who controlled the autopen".
The controversy over the use of the autopen has intensified in recent days. Trump, during a press conference from the Oval Office, called Biden "incompetent", pointing out that the use of the autopen to sign important documents was inappropriate.
