OPINION:
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigators on Tuesday released the results of their investigation into decision-making in the White House while President Biden visibly suffered from mental decline.
Although the 100-page report dwells on the use of the autopen to approve pardons and executive orders, the bigger scandal is the conduct of the men and women surrounding the president. Interviews with key members of the inner circle reveal a tale of powerful mandarins willing to betray the best interests of their boss and the nation for a buck.
Mike Donilon was the chief campaign strategist. He said he received “just a little bit short of $4 million” for directing Mr. Biden’s aborted 2024 reelection bid. Had Democratic big shots not conspired to oust the octogenarian candidate, Mr. Donilon was looking at a possible $4 million victory bonus.
That’s a mighty incentive to encourage Mr. Biden to run for a second term, despite evidence obvious even to outsiders that he was never up to the task. Nobody understood that better than Mr. Biden’s physician.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor invoked his constitutional right to avoid testifying against himself. He refused to explain how he could have proclaimed Mr. Biden was a “healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.”
A robust man who spent his entire adult life in the public eye wouldn’t have had to summon Hollywood director Steven Spielberg and producer Jeffrey Katzenberg to rescue the 2024 State of the Union speech.
The inner circle was terrified that a feeble performance during the joint session of Congress might hurt Mr. Biden’s prospects at the ballot box. Even Tinseltown flimflam artists couldn’t mask the weakness of America’s president.
Less attention was paid to the impact on the country. From the first day of Mr. Biden’s administration, heads of state picked up on the enervated leadership in the Oval Office. Vladimir Putin knew he would get away with invading Ukraine, to give one example.
That’s far more troubling than the autopen abuse. Conservatives hoping to overturn the clemency granted to lockdown architects, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, or the actions of the Jan. 6 congressional committee will likely be disappointed, as courts decline to get involved.
In Washington, legions of employees execute delegated authority from representatives in Congress, senators, judges or presidents with digital signatures and autopens. The executive burden would be unbearable if every waking moment were spent autographing parchments. The White House staff secretary dedicates 50 staff members to sorting the deluge of memos and correspondence that require responses.
As with the pardon power, the Constitution entrusts the president alone with commissioning “all the Officers of the United States.” As early as Lincoln’s time, however, the duty of signing military commissioning documents occasionally passed to the secretary of the Army or Navy.
Each branch of government sets its own rules for what needs personal signing and what doesn’t. The judicial branch will hesitate to second-guess procedures involving a core function of the chief executive.
If Congress uncovers proof that greedy functionaries sneaked pardons into the stack to be robotically endorsed without any form of blessing from the commander in chief, that would be a bombshell.
So far, oversight sleuths found only that Mr. Biden’s process, or lack thereof, was “ripe for exploitation.” That’s a political failing, not a legal one.
It exposes what voters receive when they pull the lever for a Democratic president: an empty suit managed by a team of grifters.
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