The White House says reporters should join President Donald Trump in asking whether or not his predecessor’s pardons were valid.
“The president was begging the question that I think a lot of journalists in this room should be asking,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday, alleging that former President Joe Biden was “cognitively impaired” while in office.
“The president [Trump] was raising the point that, did the president [Biden] even know about these pardons?” Leavitt said. “Was his legal signature used without his consent or knowledge?”
Trump declared early on Monday that several of Biden’s last-minute pardons were void and vacant because Biden used an automatically generated signature and may not have been fully aware of what he was doing.
“The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!”
During his last days in office, Biden issued several pardons to his family members, including James B. Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John T. Owens, and Francis W. Biden. He also issued preemptive pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, and members of the House’s Jan. 6 committee.
Trump also said Biden “knew nothing about” the pardons and implied that the people receiving them may have coordinated the action.
Leavitt took a slightly softer approach when asked about the controversy, saying that Trump was simply raising questions the media should be asking.
“I think it’s a question that everybody in this room should be looking into because, certainly, that would propose perhaps criminal or illegal behavior if staff members were signing the president of the United States’s autograph without his consent,” she said.
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She made a similar remark when pressed for evidence to back up Trump’s claims.
“You’re a reporter, you should find out,” Leavitt said.
