By April Ryan
(BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE) – President Trump is working to undo the traditional presidential pardon powers by questioning the Biden administration’s pre-emptive pardoning of members of the House Select January 6th Committee issued just days before Jan. 20, 2025.
The 47th president is seeking retribution against members of the committee that investigated the circumstances surrounding the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by insurrectionists attempting to overturn Trump’s loss at the polls. The Trump Justice Department has been tasked to find loopholes to overturn the pardons that could lead to legal battles for the Republican and Democratic nine-member committee. Legal scholars and those closely familiar with the pardon process worked with the Biden administration to ensure the preemptive pardons would stand against any retaliatory knocks from the incoming Trump administration. A source close to the Biden administration’s pardons said in January 2025, “I think pardons are all valid. The power is unreviewable by the courts.”
However, today that same source had a different statement on the nuances of the new Trump pardon attack. That new administration is questioning Biden’s use of an autopen for the pardons. The Trump argument is that Biden did not know who was pardoned as he did not sign the documents. Instead, the pardons were allegedly signed by an autopen–a tool used to make automatic or remote signatures that has been used for decades by public figures and celebrities.
The same source close to the pardon issue said this week, “Unless he [Trump] can prove Biden didn’t know what was being done in his name, all of this is in uncharted territory. “
Months before the Biden pardon announcement, those in the Biden White House Counsel’s Office, staff, and the Justice Department were conferring tirelessly around the clock on who to pardon and how. The concern for the preemptive pardons was how to make them irrevocable in an unprecedented process. At one point in the lead-up to the preemptive pardon releases, it was a possibility that they would not happen because of the complicated nature of that never-before-enacted process.
Trump began voicing the threat of an investigation into the January 6th select committee during the Capitol Hill proceedings. Trump has threatened members with investigation or jail.
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