By Alyssa Lukpat

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee recommended that the Justice Department investigate all of former President Joe Biden's executive actions, particularly clemency decisions, and determine whether he authorized them.

The committee, in a 91-page report released Tuesday, accused Biden's staffers of making executive decisions in his place toward the end of his presidency. House Republicans were probing what was known about Biden's health and age-related decline while in office.

Following interviews with 14 former Biden staffers, the committee said it believed the Democrat's aides covered up his decline. The panel recommended that the Justice Department "assess whether legal action must be taken to void any action that the former president did not, in fact, take himself."

The committee asked the Justice Department to scrutinize Biden aides Annie Tomasini and Anthony Bernal, who pleaded the Fifth Amendment during the investigation.

The committee said Biden aides failed to document that Biden himself had approved decisions before they used an autopen.

"The Committee identified irregularities in the issuance of pardons and commutations during the final days of the Biden presidency, including those involving members of the Biden family, where the autopen was used without confirmed presidential authorization or proper documentation," according to a statement from the committee.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a social-media post on Tuesday that her team was "reviewing the Biden administration's reported use of autopen for pardons" and looked forward to working with the committee "to deliver accountability for the American people."

Presidents have long used autopens, devices that replicate signatures, to handle a deluge of paperwork. President Trump has said autopens shouldn't be used to sign important documents.

Since the election, Republicans have scrutinized the use of Biden's autopen and cast doubt on executive orders he signed with it. The former president issued dozens of pardons, including for his family, and thousands of commutations at the end of his presidency.

Biden has previously denied that his aides used an autopen to issue pardons and commutations without his approval.

A Biden spokesperson said on Tuesday: "This investigation into baseless claims has confirmed what has been clear from the start: President Biden made the decisions of his presidency. There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, and no wrongdoing. Congressional Republicans should stop focusing on political retribution and instead work to end the government shutdown."

Legal scholars say there is no mechanism to undo clemency after it is granted.

In an interview with the New York Times in July, Biden said he had orally granted all of the pardons and commutations at the end of his presidency. In that interview, the former president called Trump and other Republicans "liars" for asserting that he was incapacitated and that his aides abused the autopen to issue pardons and commutations without his approval.

The Oversight Committee said that White House staff secretary Neera Tanden was in charge of the autopen, and that aides including Chief of Staff Jeff Zients approved the use of the device.

Biden had a series of mental slips during the twilight of his presidency that alarmed those interacting with him. He abandoned his re-election campaign last year after a halting debate performance where he sometimes had trouble forming sentences.

The committee's report said Biden's team used the autopen to sign pardons after an in-person meeting in the final hours of his presidency.

The White House and the Justice Department are also investigating Biden's clemency decisions. Trump signed an executive order in June ordering the White House counsel and attorney general to investigate Biden's mental state while in office and to determine whether the former president's aides had illegally used the device.

The Justice Department in a legal opinion during the George W. Bush administration approved the use of the presidential autopen. The agency said the president could only delegate the signature and not the decision to sign a document.

The oversight committee in recent months interviewed Biden aides including his White House physician Dr. Kevin O'Connor, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and former chiefs of staff, Zients and Ron Klain.

The committee asked the District of Columbia's board of medicine to investigate if O'Connor covered up Biden's condition.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) on Tuesday called the committee report "a blockbuster," adding: "This is an unprecedented situation in American politics and government. The actions of President Biden simply were not all his own actions."

Write to Alyssa Lukpat at alyssa.lukpat@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 28, 2025 12:09 ET (16:09 GMT)

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