What They Are Saying: President Biden’s Inner Circle Covered Up His Decline, Took Unauthorized Executive Actions

WASHINGTON—Last week, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a bombshell staff report titled, “The Biden Autopen Presidency: Decline, Delusion, and Deception in the White House,” which exposes how President Joe Biden’s top advisors, political operatives, and personal physician concealed the President’s mental and physical decline from the American people. The findings reveal that as President Biden’s condition deteriorated, his aides exercised presidential authority and facilitated executive actions without his direct authorization, including misusing the autopen and failing to properly document decision-making processes. 

Make no mistake: this is one of the biggest political scandals in United States history.

“It wasn’t just the opportunity cost of a commander in chief who was asleep at the wheel but the sum total of catastrophic judgments over four years of a man whose manifest flaws were only magnified by his cognitive decline,” wrote New York Post columnist Miranda Devine. 

“Our report reveals how key aides colluded to mislead the public and the extraordinary measures they took to sustain the appearance of presidential authority as Biden’s capacity to function independently diminished,” said Chairman James Comer in a press release announcing the report.

While Democrats continue to ignore this historic cover-up, here’s what columnists across the nation are saying:USA Today Opinion:Don’t ignore Congress’ damning new report on Biden. Democrats lied to us.

“Like many Americans, I suspected that Biden was suffering from declining health and that his administration was covering it up, raising ethical and practical questions about who was actually running the White House. This report confirms that and then some: Biden’s inner circle knew he was in poor health, but instead of helping him or relieving him of his presidential duties, they sought to maintain power at any cost.”

[…]

“The report says that vital decisions were executed without confirming the president’s approval, particularly pardons and commutations toward the end of his presidency. I wrote previously that Biden bungled this responsibility anyway, because he reduced the sentences of people who committed horrible crimes. 

“He wound up granting 4,245 requests for clemency, more than any other president. To now discover that an unknown number of these were likely made without his express approval is unethical at best, corrupt at worst.

[…]

“Investigations like these served to confirm what we knew all along: Biden’s inner circle gaslit the American people about what was going on. This is unacceptable, and it will take some time for the Democratic Party to recover from this loss of trust.

“I will say this: While it’s true that the Democratic Party has shown its true colors with the Biden administration, I have not lost hope in America or the American people. For the most part, many people, particularly Republicans, saw through the charade.”

National Review Opinion: The Biden Pardons Scandal Isn’t Going Away 

“The report details the shocking degree to which covering up the president’s declining mental acuity was a whole-of-administration effort prior to Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate — an event the report confirms was at least partially designed to neutralize the allegations of infirmity in special counsel Robert Hur’s report. The gambit failed, and most of Biden’s handlers knew it. Most, but not all.

[…]

“The most damning revelation in the report pertains to just how much the president and his staff were aware — or should have been aware — that Biden was lying to the American people when his White House claimed to have set a record by issuing the largest-ever blanket pardon for nonviolent offenders.”

New York Post Opinion: Miranda Devine: Biden’s autopen presidency inked a legacy of failure and coverups 

“The stark image on the wall among presidential portraits from George Washington to Donald Trump encapsulates Joe Biden’s failed presidency. 

“It wasn’t just the opportunity cost of a commander in chief who was asleep at the wheel but the sum total of catastrophic judgments over four years of a man whose manifest flaws were only magnified by his cognitive decline.

“Even though everyone on the planet saw Biden’s deterioration with our own eyes and knew what it meant, having it laid out forensically in a 100-page report by the House Oversight Committee is still shocking, especially with the accompanying video interviews of various members of Biden’s inner circle.

[…]

“It paints a grim picture of a president cocooned by his wife, Jill Biden, son Hunter Biden and three Svengali-style aides — Anthony Bernal, Jill’s chief of staff whom she reportedly called her ‘work husband,’ Annie Tomasini and Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the White House doctor who gaslit the American public with ‘grossly misleading’ medical assessments and ‘recklessly never conducted a cognitive exam’ of Joe.

[…]

“But as he did when he selected Harris and Jean-Pierre for DEI window dressing, Joe chose his ­inner sanctum precisely because they were unimpressive. 

“He was so insecure that he never wanted to be around anyone smarter or who would challenge him in any way.

“The Biden White House was an anti-meritocracy of grifters. 

“These were people willing to endure his tall tales and join in his delusions of grandeur as the price they paid for the power, influence and wealth that spun off his orbit.

“So when Joe’s decline paralyzed the administration, there was nobody capable of doing anything but cover it up, by design. 

“In this way, Joe was the malevolent architect of his failed presidency, and history should not let him off the hook as a ‘well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,’ as special counsel Robert Hur did.

[…]

“Joe Biden and his American Politburo almost took down the country.

“The botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, the open border, the reckless spending that drove raging inflation, or corrupt ulterior motives and diplomatic clumsiness abroad, were all just the tip of the iceberg of incompetence in a rudderless presidency.”

Washington Examiner Opinion: The man who stood to make millions if Biden won in 2024 

“It was clear for more than a year, even to Biden loyalists, that the president was not equipped to serve a second term. If Biden had already paid you $4 million, and if you stood to collect another $4 million if he won, would you advise him to quit? That’s a pretty powerful incentive to tell the candidate to keep fighting, as Donilon did long after the catastrophic debate with Trump.

“Many Democrats will read this and say it’s ancient history, that there is so much happening these days that House investigators, among the many things they look into, should not be going back to probe the Biden White House. But just last year, this was the most important issue in the country. It’s worth knowing what happened.”