House Republicans dropped a blockbuster staff report this week that accuses the Biden White House of allowing mechanical signatures to stand in for the president on consequential actions — and then declares many of those actions illegitimate unless the administration can prove Mr. Biden personally approved them. The committee’s release, bluntly titled “The Biden Autopen Presidency,” urges the Justice Department to open a criminal probe and demands answers about a chain of custody so lax it allegedly allowed aides to use an autopen to sign pardons and other sweeping measures.
The report catalogues jaw-dropping gaps in record-keeping and testimony suggesting White House officials, including the chief of staff, authorized autopen use on sensitive matters — a practice the committee says undercuts the very premise of presidential accountability. Republicans argued that where there’s no documentary proof the president personally approved an action, those acts should be treated as void; that is not garden-variety oversight, it is a direct challenge to the legitimacy of decisions that shaped our country.
Predictably, Democrats have waved the “partisan politics” banner and the mainstream press is sniffing for contrivance, but this isn’t about party theater — it’s about whether one man’s name was used as a rubber stamp while power was exercised behind closed doors. Even neutral reporting shows the committee interviewed more than a dozen former Biden aides and found troubling inconsistencies about how documents were handled, especially at the end of the administration when controversial clemencies were issued.
On Fox Report, seasoned legal voice Tom Dupree — a former deputy assistant attorney general — sounded the alarm, echoing what millions of Americans already suspect: when the machinery of the presidency becomes opaque, the rule of law suffers. Dupree’s appearance reinforced a conservative demand for an independent, no-nonsense probe by the Justice Department rather than more stonewalling from career insiders and political appointees. The American people deserve a straight answer, not a laundry list of excuses.
This isn’t some abstract bureaucratic squabble; it goes to national security and the trust Americans place in the Oval Office. If pardons, executive orders, and other instruments of power can be rubber-stamped without a clear, accountable chain of approval, then policy is being made by invisible hands with zero electoral mandate. Conservatives who believe in limited government and the rule of law must demand vigorous investigation and accountability for anyone who covered up the truth or treated the presidency like a convenience.
We should also be clear-eyed about precedent: allow one administration to blur the difference between directive and forgery and you invite every future White House to hide behind technology and bureaucracy. Congress must tighten statutes and record-keeping rules so that autopen use is transparent, documented, and never a substitute for presidential intent on matters of life, liberty, and national security. If the DOJ won’t act, the American people should make sure their elected representatives do.
Patriotic Americans who wake up early, work late, and pay the taxes that fund government deserve better than a system where power is exercised in the shadows and then defended by press releases. This report is a call to arms for accountability — not revenge — and conservatives must press the case until every questionable action is explained, every cover-up exposed, and every official who violated their oath answers in full. The preservation of our republic depends on it.
