Former President Joe Biden is facing renewed scrutiny over his mental acuity following the release of the Hur tapes. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
The flurry of pardons Biden allegedly signed by autopen in the waning days of his administration included ones for his son Hunter Biden, his siblings and their spouses, retired Gen. Mark Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and members and staff of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told Fox News Digital in a phone interview on Sunday that he has long sounded the alarm over the validity of Biden's pardons, as many lacked specifically what charges an individual was protected against. Instead, many of the pardons outlined blanket protections, such as preemptively pardoning Milley and Fauci from potential prosecution and blanket pardons for unidentified members of Congress who served on the J6 select committee.
"I've been long of the position that the pardons, many of the pardons, are not valid based on the fact that they don't pardon anything. It's just a pardon for conduct that's unnamed … it's further confirmation that the pardons are not valid," said Fitton, who had sued for the release of the audio recordings.
WHAT IS AN AUTOPEN? THE SIGNING DEVICE AT THE HEART OF TRUMP'S ATTACKS ON BIDEN PARDONS
"A competent president would say, ‘How is it I could pardon someone for nothing?’" he continued.
Fitton added that "more importantly, Biden should still be prosecuted" after he was "mollycoddled" by the Biden DOJ during the investigation into the documents he possessed from his days in the Senate and when he served as vice president.
An example of an autopen machine. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
Autopen signatures are automatically produced by a machine, as opposed to an authentic, handwritten signature. The conservative Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project first investigated the Biden administration's use of an autopen earlier this year and found that the same signature was on a bevvy of executive orders and other official documents, while Biden’s signature on the document announcing his departure from the 2024 race varied from the apparent machine-produced signature.
The reports led to speculation that Biden aides had approved of executive orders and sweeping pardons, not the president.
Hur led an investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents following his departure as vice president under the Obama administration. Hur announced in February 2024 that he would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, citing that Biden is "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
Although a transcript was released, the White House asserted executive privilege over releasing recordings after Garland urged the administration not to release the recordings, according to a letter obtained by Fox News in May of last year.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY). (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
"The American people deserve to know who was actually calling the shots in the Biden White House, because it wasn’t Joe Biden. His mental decline was obvious to anyone paying attention. But instead of being honest, the Biden Administration, Democrats in Congress, and the legacy media lied and covered it up. They gaslit the American people while propping up a man who was unfit to lead," Comer said in a press release on Friday, noting that Garland "defied" a subpoena to release the recordings.
"Key decisions made in the final days of the Biden presidency, including using autopens to issue blanket pardons for the Biden Crime Family, must be fully examined. There are serious concerns that President Biden lacked the mental capacity to authorize those actions. The American people are done being lied to. We’re going to bring the truth into the light, and starting next week, those involved in the cover-up will begin to be put on notice," Comer said in a statement on Friday.
The recordings "demonstrate that Biden was completely out of it, and we already found documents that the Biden White House had changed the transcript, edited it to hide this. This is what they were hiding. There's got to be accountability. Garland should be prosecuted by the Attorney General over the contempt he had for Congress to hide this," Fitton said on Fox News last week.
Fox News host Mark Levin said Garland "should be forced to testify before Congress under oath" over the alleged cover-up of Biden's health.
"Former Attorney General Garland heard these recordings and used lies and deceit to prevent them from being released to the American people before the Democrats nominated Biden. He should be forced to testify before Congress under oath and held to account for his grotesque abuse of power," Levin posted to X.
HUNTER BIDEN PARDON: MEDIA TAKES LATEST BLOW TO CREDIBILITY WITH BOTCHED COVERAGE OF BROKEN PROMISE
Hours before Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, the White House announced pardons for both Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; and Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Less than a half an hour before Trump became president, Biden pardoned members of his family, including his brother James B. Biden, sister Valerie Biden Owens, brother-in-law John T. Owens and brother Francis W. Biden.
The former president had previously issued a "full and unconditional pardon" to his adult son, Hunter Biden, after he was convicted in two separate federal cases last year. Hunter Biden's pardon covered a 10-year period, between 2014 to 2024, for any offenses he may have committed.
"I do think that the Biden pardons need some scrutiny, and they need scrutiny because we want pardons to matter and to be accepted and to be something that's used correctly. So, I do think we're going to take a hard look at how they went and what they did. And if they're null and void," Ed Martin said in his final press conference while serving as acting U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C.
Former Interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin. (Getty Images)
"And that at least leads to questions, because the plenary power’s true. But the question is what is going on here, and I did get responses from some of them and those questions are ongoing," Martin continued.
Conservative social media users have sounded off that the recordings show Biden lacked the cognitive ability to know about the pardons or executive orders he allegedly signed off on.
"Joe Biden had no clue where he was for most of his presidency... Just listen to Robert Hur's interview with him... He's a complete mess. There's no way Biden knew about the pardons, executive orders and directives coming out of his office," conservative X commentator Tim Young posted to the platform.
"I'd say with the Hur tapes coming out, maybe those pardons can be challenged? Biden was CLEARLY mentally incapacitated," conservative podcast host Shawn Farash posted to X.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Biden's office for comment on the tapes and subsequent backlash on Sunday morning but did not immediately receive a reply.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bidens-woes-converge-last-minute-pardons-under-fire-calls-prosecution-mount-following-hur-tape-release