Then-President Joe Biden, left, and then-President-elect Donald Trump arrive for the inauguration ceremony in Washington Jan. 20, 2025. (Melina Mara/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The official told Fox News Digital that they expect to review upward of one million documents.
As for access to records held by NARA, the official said that each sitting president has access to documents held by the archives from the prior administration.
Senior administration officials told Fox News Digital that the scope of the review covers relevant documents related to Biden's presidency and use of the autopen over several years, in an effort to bring transparency to the American people regarding the former president’s health.
Officials also said they are specifically reviewing whether there was any policy in place to safeguard the use of the autopen.
"What did the former president direct, versus what he did not," one official explained. "The only time a legitimate use of the autopen should happen is if the president said he wanted something done, or if he was asked for his approval."
"This has been a priority for the administration since the beginning," another official said. "The president’s signature is one of the most important signatures in the world."
Damilic Corp. president Bob Olding anchors a sheet of paper as the Atlantic Plus, the Signascript tabletop model autopen, produces a signature at their Rockville, Md., office, June 13, 2011. (Manuel Balce Ceneta, File/The Associated Press)
"The question is, did Biden surrender his Article II executive authorities to unelected staffers that the American people don’t know, and to a machine that holds the same legal authority as his right hand, because he wasn’t capable of doing the job?" one official said. "Did unelected staffers, radical staffers, use the power of this machine to radically transform America?"
Biden, in a recent interview with the New York Times, defended his use of the autopen, saying that he "made every decision" on his own.
"We’re talking about (granting clemency to) a whole lot of people," Biden said.
However, the Times reported that Biden "did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people," according to the former president and his aides.
Congressional committees, like the House Oversight Committee, also are investigating the use of the autopen and Biden's health while in office.
TRUMP CLAIMS BIDEN PARDONS ARE ‘VOID,’ ALLEGING THEY WERE SIGNED VIA AUTOPEN
A senior administration official recognized their simultaneous effort, but stressed that the White House Counsel's investigation is completely separate from the congressional probe.
President Donald Trump signed four executive orders in May aimed at quadrupling domestic nuclear energy production by 2050. (Fox News)
"Nothing that would be considered official business," a White House official told Fox News Digital. "Every executive order signing has been public and the president has signed these documents live and in person."
Trump, in June, sent a memo to the Department of Justice directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the autopen use, and to determine whether it was related to a decline in Biden's mental state.
Brooke Singman is a political correspondent and reporter for Fox News Digital, Fox News Channel and FOX Business.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-investigating-biden-use-autopen-sprawling-probe-incompetent-senile-former-president