Donald Trump declared his predecessor’s last-minute pardons ‘void, vacant and of no further force or effect’ as he warned that members of the House committee investigating the January 6 riots can now face prosecution.
Trump claimed late Sunday night that because Joe Biden used an autopen the pardons cannot be enforced and even made the stunning suggestion they were signed without the former president’s knowledge.
‘The Pardons that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs and many others are hereby declared VOID, VACANT AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,’ he posted on his Truth Social page.
‘In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!’ Trump claimed.
‘The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them and the people that did may have committed a crime.
‘Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two year Witch Hunt of me and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level,’ Trump wrote.
Biden had issued preemptive pardons for all nine members of the January 6 Committee – including panel Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson and former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney.
‘The fact is they were probably responsible for the Documents that were signed on their behalf or consent of the Worst President in the History of our Country, Crooked Joe Biden,’ Trump claimed on Sunday.
Trump has repeatedly hit out at the House committee investigating the Capitol riots as comprising ‘Radical Left Democrats and a few horrible RINO Republicans.’
When the committee first proposed criminal charges, for example Trump said they should instead ‘hold themselves in criminal contempt for cheating in the Election, making up the Fake Russia, Russia, Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine Scams, the Afghanistan debacle, the Southern Border Crisis, the crashing economy and record-setting inflation.
Biden had used his final moments in the Oval Office to give blanket protection to Dr. Anthony Fauci and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, whom Trump has said deserves to be executed.
Many were quick to criticize Biden for pardoning Fauci, whom Trump’s base blames for strict COVID-19 restrictions, including social distancing, mask wearing, and harsh vaccine mandates that led to many Americans losing their jobs under Biden’s leadership.
Fauci is also accused of lying to Congress about the U.S. sending money to fund gain-of-function research at the laboratory in Wuhan, China, where the virus is thought to have originated and leaked from.
Trump’s initial reaction was to tell NBC’s Kristen Welker that the pardons are ‘disgraceful.’
‘Many are guilty of MAJOR CRIMES!’ he wrote in a text to the anchor, sent as he engaged in inauguration activities.
Assistant to the President Taylor Budowich also released a quick response on X, claiming: ‘Joe Biden’s final act as President will go down as the greatest attack on America’s justice system in history.’
‘With the stroke of a pen, he unilaterally shielded a group of political cronies from the scales of justice. This is yet another dangerous and unreversible (sic) erosion of American norms.’
But questions have since arisen about whether Biden actually signed many of the orders under his administration amid his noticeable cognitive decline after it was revealed they were signed with an autopen.
The mechanical device signs documents rather than an individual. It has been used by presidents and lawmakers for decades.
On Thursday, the Oversight Project wrote that it ‘gathered every document we could find with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency’.
‘All used the same autopen signature except for the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the race last year.’
It went on to share two examples from documents that it claimed showed the use of the autopen including a document from August 2022 as well as one from December 2024 with what appear to be identical signatures.
The group also posted an image of Biden’s signature as a comparison from when he announced he was dropping out of the race. That image shows a slight variation from the other shared documents.
DailyMail.com also examined more than 25 Biden executive orders documented on the Federal Register’s office between 2021 and 2025. It found the same signature on each.
A separate examination of 25 Trump signatures on orders on the Federal Register’s website from his first and second administrations also found the signatures were all the same.
The Oversight Project now says investigators must determine ‘who controlled the autopen and what checks there were in place’ to determine whether Biden actually made any of the orders.
Still, it questioned if that was something that could be determined in the ‘correct legal process.’
The Oversight Project shared what it had found regarding Biden’s use of an autopen after the Republican Attorney General of Missouri Andrew Bailey called for a Justice Department investigation.
Bailey wrote last week he wanted them to look into whether Biden’s ‘cognitive decline allowed unelected staff to push through radical policy without his knowing approval.’
The GOP state attorney general sent a letter to the Justice Department inspector general on March 4, requesting a probe into the former president’s final days in office.
Bailey claimed in his letter it ‘appears staffers and officers in the Biden administration may have exploited Biden’s incapacity so they could issue orders without an accountable President of sound mind approving them.’
The Trump ally argued if Biden was being exploited, the orders are ‘null and void’ and states need to know.
Bailey cited an example where Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson recently claimed Biden did not appear to know what orders he had been signing in a conversation they had.
In its thread of posts about the autopen, the Oversight Project also shared a video clip of Johnson in an interview where he said the former president did not remember signing an executive order on energy exports.
Johnson recalled in the interview about how he went back and forth with the 81-year-old president, and Biden said that he signed an order to conduct a study on the effects of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).
The speaker told Bari Weiss he believes the former president ‘genuinely did not know what he had signed.’
While the Oversight Project posted that all the signatures it gathered but the one on the exit letter appeared to have been done by autopen, in a interview on the far-right Real America’s Voice, Heritage attorney Samuel Dewey noted another signature that they believe was also done in person was the pardon of Hunter Biden which he described as ‘shaky.’