Biden Aide Does Not Know Who Ordered President Autopen Signatures

Neera Tanden, a former high aide for President Joe Biden, advised Congress that she had authorization to direct autopen signatures for the president however doesn’t know who gave the ultimate order.

Tanden served because the director of Biden’s Home Coverage Council and he or she advised Congress throughout a sworn statement on Tuesday that the president used an automated signature software permitting for aides to signal pardons, memos, and different official paperwork within the White Home. Tanden stated she didn’t know who licensed these signatures. Per Fox Information:

Throughout Tanden’s interview earlier than Congress, which lasted greater than 5 hours, she advised lawmakers that, in her function as workers secretary and senior advisor to the previous president between 2021 and 2023, she was licensed to direct autopen signatures on behalf of Biden, an Oversight Committee official advised Fox Information.

Tanden, who reportedly stated throughout her testimony that she had restricted interactions with Biden in her function, in keeping with sources conversant in her testimony, described an approval course of that left her – not less than partly – at midnight about who particularly was giving ultimate approval on the choices to make use of the automated signature software, though she concurrently insisted Biden was in cost.

Tanden reportedly testified that to get approval for the usage of autopen signatures she would ship determination memos to members of Biden’s inside circle. Nonetheless, she added that she was not conscious of what actions or approvals happened between the time she despatched the choice memo and the time she obtained it again with the mandatory approval, in keeping with the supply acquainted.

A minority member of the Oversight Committee known as Tanden’s characterization “a lie,” with a press release from a former White Home staffer saying that they obtained a “written log off [from Biden] on each govt motion she introduced him with.”

“Another characterization is a distortion of the testimony,” the official stated. “To intimate that Neera Tanden stated President Biden didn’t approve each single presidential determination and log off on each govt motion popping out of the White Home is a lie.”

Tanden’s lawyer, Michael Bromwich, agreed with the staffer, including that the autopens have been used after Biden authorized the choices.

“The autopen was used … solely after the President personally authorized the choice,”Bromwitch stated. “Aides at no time signed these paperwork on President Biden’s behalf.”