US President Donald Trump has ordered a sweeping investigation into his predecessor’s administration, directing the Justice Department to investigate whether unelected aides substantially ran the country during Joseph Biden’s presidency.
The probe into Biden’s final acts in office will examine the use of automated signatures on official documents, including commuting 37 death sentences and pardons granted to family members and political allies.
“Given the clear indications that President Biden lacked the capacity to exercise his presidential powers, if his advisers secretly used a mechanical pen to sign to conceal this incapacity while taking radical executive action all in his name, it would constitute an unconstitutional abuse of presidential power and authority,” Trump’s order said.
The investigation focuses on allegations that Biden’s declining judgment allowed staff to make key decisions without his direct input. The investigators are tasked with determining whether there was a coordinated effort within the Biden administration to conceal from the public the president’s health problems, including possible conspiracies to suppress evidence of impaired judgment and to artificially portray him as fit to serve.
Trump has previously accused Biden’s aides of potentially committing “treason of the highest order” by exploiting his predecessor’s declining judgment to pursue policies he may not have personally supported. The Justice Department’s investigation is intended to determine whether any executive actions were authorized by Biden himself. Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House counsel David Warrington are tasked with leading the investigation.
Trump’s critics say the investigation is politically motivated and lacks substantive evidence, while legal experts note that the use of a fountain pen for presidential signatures is legally permitted and has been used by numerous previous administrations. The Trump administration says it has never been used to this extent.
Biden’s team announced last month that the former president had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Many commentators, including Trump, have argued that the disease had been developing over several years and that Biden’s inner circle deliberately hid the diagnosis from the public. U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, who chairs the House Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee, has launched a special investigation into a potential cover-up regarding the former president’s health.
