A new report said that a top Justice Department official is investigating multiple pardons issued by former President Joe Biden.
Reuters reported, pardon attorney Ed Martin, formerly the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., has sent an email to staff saying he was investigating Biden’s late-term pardons.
In addition to pardoning his son, Hunter Biden, the former president pardoned James Biden, Frank Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, and their spouses even though no charges were filed against them. Biden also pardoned several high-profile Democrats who had previously clashed with President Donald Trump and doled out clemency to multiple death row inmates.
Martin wrote staff members that his investigation focused upon whether Biden “was competent and whether others were taking advantage of him through use of AutoPen or other means.”
Autopen use has been controversial because multiple reports have emerged that Biden aides who used the autopen – which generates an exact replica of a president’s signature – may have done so without Biden’s knowledge.
Further, a new new book has brought into question the extent to which Biden’s physical and mental decline towards the end of his term led to decision-making authority being taken by aides or family members.
The email said Martin’s probe is focused on the pardons to family members and 37 instances when Biden granted clemency to federal death row inmates.
Martin’s email did not give specifics.
Reuters contacted the Justice Department for comment but as of Tuesday morning had not received a reply.
A report in the New York Post earlier this year claimed that an unnamed Biden aide used an autopen to sign official documents without other aides knowing whether Biden actually approved the actions.
The report said that according to one of two unnamed former aides, the staff member in question would say he was doing what “the boss” wanted, but no one dared ask if this was true.
In a recent interview, Alex Thompson of Axios, who co-authored a recent book on Joe Biden’s decline, said Biden aides believed “picking up the slack” for the former president was part of their duty, according to the New York Post.
“These were unelected people. And one of the things that really I think comes out in our reporting here is that if you believe — and I think a lot of these people do sincerely believe that Donald Trump was and is an existential threat to democracy — you can rationalize anything, including sometimes doing undemocratic things, which I think is what this person is talking about,” Thompson said, according to the Huffington Post.
Thompson called the aides running the Biden White House the “politburo,” which included Jill Biden, Hunter Biden and aides Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed.
Thompson claims the “politburo” contained the “ultimate decision-makers” as Biden drifted into decline.
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer has said his committee will seek transcribed interviews with Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Joe Biden’s physician, and former White House officials Neera Tanden, Anthony Bernal, Annie Tomasini and Ashley Williams, according to a news release posted on the website of the committee.
The release said the investigation into Biden’s physical and mental health, is “part of the investigation into the cover-up of President Joe Biden’s mental decline and potentially unauthorized use of autopen for sweeping pardons.”
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