Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has accused former President Joe Biden of violating constitutional requirements through the administration’s extreme use of the autopen. In a letter sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi and obtained by Fox News, Cruz explained that “core Constitutional requirements, considerations, and expectations were demolished in the final months of the Biden administration for partisan and personal motives by President Biden, his family, and his top officials.”
According to the presidential pardon authority as listed under Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, there must be a direct line of a pardon from the president. “Everyone involved in the process — government officials purporting to issue a pardon, the person to whom it is being granted, judicial and law enforcement officials, and most of all the American people — should have absolute confidence a pardon was granted at the president’s explicit direction,” explained Cruz.
“If the integrity of the clemency process was broken by Biden officials, such that the relevant actions were not taken at the President’s direction,” he noted, “the status of the pardons and commutations would at a minimum be cast into doubt, and the officials involved in approving and using the autopens should be held accountable.”
Biden admitted to The New York Times in July that he did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons affecting large groups of people, although he defended the use of the autopen.
“I made every decision,” he told the outlet in a phone call, adding that the autopen was used because “we’re talking about a whole lot of people.”
According to emails reviewed by The Times, an aide sent a draft of decisions to an assistant of Biden’s Chief of Staff, Jeffrey Zients. The chief of staff, copying those involved in the meeting, wrote in an email, “I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons.”
Rep. Addison McDowell (R-NC) has introduced a bill addressing abuse of the autopen amid investigations into its overuse during the Biden administration. Under the legislation, the United States Code would be amended to add the following: ‘‘Notwithstanding this section or any other provision of law, no person other than the President may lawfully sign an engrossed bill, Executive Order, or pardon or commutation, nor may automatic signing device, including an autopen, be used for such purpose.’’
