Trump orders investigation into Biden presidency claiming aides hid his ‘serious cognitive decline’ | EUROtoday

President Donald Trump has ordered an investigation into former President Joe Biden’s actions as president by way of a memorandum asking “who ran the United States while President Biden was in office.”

The memo alleges that Biden and his aides hid his “serious cognitive decline” in the course of the latter a part of his presidency.

The Trump administration introduced the investigation on Wednesday night. The investigation will search to find out if “certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President.”

By calling into query who wielded government energy throughout Biden’s presidency, the Trump administration seems to be place to undermine the legitimacy of his government actions, together with pardons, government orders, and laws signed into legislation.

The memo additionally mandates an investigation into all of Biden’s government actions throughout his “final years in office, examining policy documents signed with an autopen, who authorized its use, and the validity of the resulting Presidential policy decisions.”

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“In recent months, it has become increasingly apparent that former President Biden’s aides abused the power of Presidential signature through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline and assert Article II authority,” the Trump memorandum says. “This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history.”

The memorandum accuses Biden’s aides of limiting “his news conferences and media appearances, scripting his conversations with lawmakers, government officials, and donors,” and calling into query the actions taken throughout his time in workplace.

White House counsel David Warrington has been tapped to guide the investigation, with Attorney General Pam Bondi consulting.

Earlier on Wednesday, Trump foreshadowed the memo in a usually apoplectic Truth Social put up.

“With the exception of the RIGGED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020, THE AUTOPEN IS THE BIGGEST POLITICAL SCANDAL IN AMERICAN HISTORY!!!” he wrote on his social media platform.

The announcement comes on the heels of a Reuters report that Ed Martin, the Justice Department’s pardon lawyer, had instructed employees on June 2 that he had been directed to research clemency and pardons that had been granted in the course of the Biden administration, significantly in the course of the ultimate days of his administration.

Democrats went on the protection inside an hour of the memo’s launch. Congressman Dan Goldman spoke to CNN and referred to as Trump’s investigation an try by the president to distract the American public from his quite a few private and political controversies.

“The idea of focusing on President Biden is a way of distracting from Donald Trump’s efforts to completely undermine our democracy, to grift and engage in corruption, and to help out his billionaire buddies by cutting their taxes while taking Medicaid away from the American people,” he said Wednesday evening.

A recurring focus of the memorandum appears to be Biden’s use of an autopen, a device that mechanically replicates a signature.

Use of autopens is not uncommon for presidents nor is it illegal. Previous presidents, including Trump, have used the devices.

During a press briefing on June 3, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified that the Trump administration was not concerned about the use of the autopen, but rather if people other than Biden were using it to sign pardons, bills, or executive orders.

“It’s whether or not or not the president of the United States knew it was getting used, and if not, who was utilizing it in his identify, which is clearly, unlawful habits,” she mentioned.

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The implication within the memorandum is that the Trump administration will attempt to roll again Biden’s government actions if it might probably set up that Biden was not conscious — or didn’t have the capability to bear in mind — that his signature was getting used.

“Given clear indications that President Biden lacked the capacity to exercise his Presidential authority, if his advisors secretly used the mechanical signature pen to conceal this incapacity, while taking radical executive actions all in his name, that would constitute an unconstitutional wielding of the power of the Presidency, a circumstance that would have implications for the legality and validity of numerous executive actions undertaken in Biden’s name,” the memorandum says.

There is at present no proof suggesting that anybody apart from Biden used the autopen for his government actions.

Last month, Jake Tapper and Axios journalist Alex Thompson launched a e book — Original Sin — that alleges there was an effort by Biden’s inside circle to “cover-up” the previous president’s cognitive decline in an effort to current him as a viable candidate for the 2024 presidential election.

Tapper, throughout an interview with Piers Morgan final week, mentioned the scandal could also be “worse than Watergate”.

Among the revelations in Original Sin are claims that the previous president’s aides mentioned the potential for placing him in a wheelchair, that Biden failed to acknowledge the Hollywood star George Clooney at a fundraiser and wished to testify at his troubled son Hunter Biden’s trial and that Harris’s advisers believed he “f***ed” her marketing campaign.

Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has additionally hopped off the Biden practice for the possibility to jot down about him as a substitute. The writer of her upcoming e book introduced that she has left the Democratic Party and can launch a tell-all e book about her time within the Biden White House.