A top former aide to former President Joe Biden testified behind closed doors Tuesday as part of the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into his mental fitness to serve and his White House’s use of an autopen, confirming she was authorized to use the automatic signature device while pushing back on concerns about alleged manipulation or malfeasance.
Neera Tanden, who served as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, explained in her opening remarks Tuesday that she was given authority to wield the autopen. She said she “was responsible for handling the flow of documents to and from the president” and was authorized to direct autopen use from October 2021 to May 2023 when she was serving as staff secretary and senior advisor to Biden.
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Tanden entered the committee’s Capitol Hill office building at 9:46 a.m. and did not respond to questions from reporters.
She is the first of a slate of witnesses set to appear this week, including Anthony Bernal, a senior adviser to former first lady Jill Biden, who is scheduled to meet with investigators on Thursday.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday morning that the committee wants answers about “who was calling the shots” during Biden’s final two years in office, and why the president’s signature was increasingly replaced by the use of an autopen to sign certain executive orders even on days while he was physically present at the White House.
Here are the top takeaways from the first of many closed-door interviews.
Tanden says she was authorized to direct autopen use, but denies manipulation
Tanden confirmed that during her tenure as White House staff secretary, she oversaw the many documents coming to and from the president’s desk, and she noted that her role included authorization to direct autopen use.
“As staff secretary, I was responsible for handling the flow of documents to and from the president,” she said. “I was also authorized to direct that autopen signatures be affixed to certain categories of documents. We had a system for authorizing the use of the autopen that I inherited from prior administrations. We employed that system throughout my tenure as staff secretary.”
However, Tanden noted that she stopped overseeing autopen use after May 2023, when she became head of the Domestic Policy Council.
“I had no experience in the White House that would provide any reason to question [Biden’s] command as president,” she added.
In 2005, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Howard C. Nielson, Jr., of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote in an opinion that the president does not need to “personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill.” Rather, he may “sign a bill within the meaning of Article I, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.”
Republicans, however, are not disputing the legality of a president using an autopen. Rather, they are pushing to conduct thorough interviews with Biden’s former staff to determine whether Biden actually agreed to using the autopen each time it was used during his administration and whether he was even cognitively capable of doing so.
The Oversight Project, which has for months investigated documents signed by Biden, has said its research uncovered at least eight separate occasions when Biden used the autopen to sign executive orders on days when he was working at the White House, raising concerns about the need to use the auto-affixed signature if he was already in Washington.
Tanden defends cooperation while dinging GOP efforts
Tanden defended her cooperation with the committee while criticizing the investigation itself in her opening statement.
She further claimed that the committee was ignoring oversight of President Donald Trump‘s administration in favor of “the last administration,” citing what she called more pressing topics such as Trump’s “meme coin and cryptocurrency adventures” and “lawless attacks on our universities and prominent law firms.”
Around 12:45 p.m., Comer told reporters that the committee had concluded its second full hour of questioning Tanden, noting that Democrats declined to use their first allotted hour under the committee’s formal deposition procedures.
“It’s my understanding that the Democrats may ask a few questions now, but then we’ll proceed to begin our third hour of questioning,” Comer said. He added that Tanden had been “very forthcoming” and that investigators were gaining “a lot better understanding of how things worked in the Biden administration.”
Comer, joined by Reps. Eli Crane (R-AZ) and Wesley Bell (D-MO), arrived shortly after Tanden on Tuesday morning. These members were later joined by the new top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, ranking member Robert Garcia (D-CA), who was elected via a secret ballot with the full Democratic House caucus just minutes before entering the closed-door interview.
Democrat says investigation only meant to satisfy ‘king’ Trump
Bell, a freshman Democrat on the committee, dismissed the investigation as politically motivated and lacking substance.
“This is for one person, their king, to stroke his ego,” Bell told the Washington Examiner, referring to Trump. The president has also ordered the Justice Department to investigate the matter, asking Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House counsel David Warrington to oversee the investigation.
Bell, a former prosecutor and judge, added, “I’ve seen weak cases, and I’ve seen strong cases. This is no case.”
“We spent an hour hearing about coffee that the witness had with different folks, not the president,” Bell said. “I got a tour of the White House, so I learned about where certain offices are.”
Transcribed interviews won’t be released ‘before all of them have concluded’
Tanden’s interview is one of several scheduled transcribed interviews with former White House officials.
The committee has also scheduled interviews with former aides Annie Tomasini and Ashley Williams and is actively pursuing others, including former chief of staff Ron Klain and top Biden adviser Anita Dunn. Biden’s longtime physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, is slated to appear for a deposition on July 9.
While the interviews are conducted behind closed doors, the transcripts are slated to be made public, according to a spokesperson for the committee. The closed-door format allows investigators to obtain more substantive information. Comer told the Washington Examiner that no interview transcripts will be released before all of them have concluded.
“I always prefer the transcribed interview/deposition, as opposed to a committee hearing,” Comer told the Washington Examiner. “So much more substantive.”
Committees typically conduct transcribed interviews over several hours, with Republicans and Democrats granted extended time for questioning compared to the five-minute increments afforded to members during publicly televised hearings.
Comer said the committee is especially focused on whether any executive actions were authorized without Biden’s explicit approval, and whether the autopen was used to bypass the president at any point during his tenure.
BIDEN AIDES LINED UP TO APPEAR BEFORE HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE IN AUTOPEN INVESTIGATION
“This is the first of what will be many interviews with people that we believe were involved in the autopen scandal in the Biden administration,” Comer said. “I think the American people want to know. I think there’s a huge level of curiosity in the press corps with respect to who was actually calling the shots in the Biden administration.”
In response, Biden has pushed back on GOP criticism of his presidency, saying in a written statement that he “was the one who made the decisions” and accusing Trump of launching a politically motivated distraction.