Justice is coming for Biden's 'autopen' pardons — and Trump's DOJ just put everyone on notice

Ed Martin, the incoming Department of Justice pardon attorney and director of the DOJ's Weaponization Working Group, announced Tuesday that he will review the rash of questionable "autopen" pardons issued in the final days of the Biden White House, noting that they "need some scrutiny."

"They need scrutiny because we want pardons to matter, and to be accepted, and to be something that's used correctly. So I do think we're going to take a hard look at how they went and what they did," Martin told reporters.

The Justice Department's probe could spell trouble for controversial Biden pardonees such as Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, members of the Biden clan, and former members of the House Jan. 6 select committee — including Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), whom President Donald Trump and other Republicans have faulted for various alleged crimes and improprieties.

For instance, Trump has suggested that Milley may have committed "treason." While previously serving as Trump's most senior uniformed adviser, Milley called his communist Chinese counterpart, communist Gen. Li Zuocheng, on two occasions — four days before the 2020 election and on Jan. 8, 2021 — to reassure Zuocheng that he would provide him with actionable warnings should Trump decide to attack. Milley received a pardon just hours before former President Joe Biden left office.

Fauci, the fifth director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, received a "full and unconditional" pass for possible federal crimes going back to Jan. 1, 2014 — around the time the Obama administration supposedly halted funding for dangerous gain-of-function research.

In February, over 16 state attorneys general launched an investigation into Fauci's role in the COVID-19 pandemic response, "demanding accountability for alleged mismanagement, misleading statements, and suppression of scientific debate." Without his autopen pardon, Fauci would be legally exposed at both the state and federal levels.

"The American people were promised accountability, and I think Ed Martin is our best shot at it," Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, told Blaze News. "These pardons are fake and invalid, and the president has already said that is his view."

'There are some really bad actors, some people that did some really bad things to the American people.'

"When these people, like the January 6 Committee and particularly Adam Schiff, are charged and try defending their bogus pardon, then we will start to learn who was really running the White House," continued Howell. "We need to answer the question everyone is asking: Who was running the government the last four years?"

Blaze News reached out to the DOJ for comment but did not immediately receive a response. Schiff also did not respond to a question about whether he would mind losing his pardon, given that he indicated in December he didn't want it in the first place.

RELATED: Trump declares Biden's 'autopen' pardons for J6 committee, Fauci, others are 'VOID'

Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

In early March, the Oversight Project revealed that Biden's signature on numerous pardons, executive orders, and other documents of national consequence was likely machine-generated.

The watchdog group later confirmed "the same exact Biden autopen signature" was used on the pardons for Fauci, Milley, and members of the Jan. 6 committee, as well as on the pardons for several members of Biden's family who were apparently involved in dodgy foreign deals with the former president and his felonious son Hunter Biden.

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Biden's cognitive decline was already enough for Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) and others to question the legal legitimacy of pardons bearing his machine-printed signature; however, suspicions about the validity of the documents was compounded by reports of staffers and family members making decisions on Biden's behalf; evidence that his signature appeared on documents while he was on vacation; Biden's alleged admission to having no recollection of a consequential January 2024 order to pause decisions on exports of liquefied natural gas; and a former Biden aide's claim to the New York Post that a key staffer, who was not named, was suspected of unilaterally making decisions to sign documents as the former president's mental faculties declined.

"The prolific use of autopen by the Biden White House was an instrument to hide the truth from the American people as to who was running the government," Howell told Blaze News at the time.

RELATED: The Great Biden Book War has finally begun

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

President Donald Trump soon weighed in on the autopen controversy, declaring in a March 17 post on Truth Social that 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. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!"

"The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden," continue Trump. "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."

Martin suggested Tuesday that while the mere use of autopen is itself not necessarily an issue, "No one, I think, with the standard of ... reasonableness thinks that what Joe Biden did at the end of his term was particularly reasonable."

"There are some really bad actors, some people that did some really bad things to the American people," continued Martin. "And if they can be charged, we'll charge them. But if they can't be charged, we will name them. ... And in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are shamed. And that's a fact. That's the way things work, and so that's how I believe the job operates."

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