White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that President Trump was \u00ab\u00a0begging the question\u00a0\u00bb when declaring former President Joe Biden’s apparently auto-penned pardons were \u00ab\u00a0void, vacant, and of no further force of effect\u00a0\u00bb \u2014 as the practical effect of the current commander in chief’s pronouncement remains in question.<\/b>
\nWhite House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that President Trump was \u201cbegging the question\u201d when declaring former President Joe Biden\u2019s apparently auto-penned pardons were \u201cvoid, vacant, and of no further force of effect\u201d \u2014 as the practical effect of the current commander in chief\u2019s pronouncement remains in question.
Leavitt said that Trump \u2014 who wrote on Truth Social media early Monday that recipients were henceforth \u201csubject to investigation\u201d \u2014 was \u201craising the point\u201d that the clemency might not be legal.
\u201cThe president was raising the point that, \u2018Did the president even know about these pardons? Was his legal signature used without his consent or knowledge?’\u201d Leavitt said at her regular briefing Monday.
\u201cWas he aware of his signature being used on every single pardon? That\u2019s a question you should ask the Biden White House.\u201d
Leavitt deflected when asked if Trump wanted the Justice Department or FBI to take action against the pardon recipients, including members of the since-disbanded House select committee that investigated his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, whom Republicans have accused of illegally destroying evidence assembled during the probe and of \u201cwitness tampering.\u201d
\u201cHe has appointed great people \u2014 Attorney General Pam Bondi and also in our FBI Director Kash Patel \u2014 to do what they think is best for our justice system and to stop the weaponization of justice that we saw under the previous administration,\u201d Leavitt said.
\u201cWe want to restore the Department of Justice to an institution that focuses on fighting [for] law and order and [against] crime and putting real criminals behind bars, not targeting Americans because of their religion or their political speech.\u201d
Biden has not publicly spoken about his decision to issue preemptive pardons on the final day of his presidency to those members of Congress, as well as to Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and members of his own family \u2014 after pardoning son Hunter Biden on Dec. 1.
He did, however, express awareness about the debate over prophylactic pardons in the closing days of his term of office and no evidence exists that the pardons were issued without his consent \u2014 even though more broadly some aides suspect paperwork may have in some instances gone to the robotic pen without express presidential approval.
Legal experts and Republican sources aren\u2019t sure what Trump\u2019s claims that the pardons are null and void actually will have \u2014 and Trump himself acknowledged to reporters on Air Force One Sunday night that whether Biden\u2019s signature on certain documents was invalid \u201cwould be up to a court.\u201d
Mark Osler, a pardons expert at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minnesota, told The Post that \u201cit\u2019s very hard to tell\u201d what will come of Trump\u2019s contention.
\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty fluid situation at DOJ right now, and there\u2019s new people in place in many key positions. I think they\u2019re still working out what the relationship is between the White House and the DOJ \u2014 although clearly it\u2019s gonna be very different than it\u2019s been in the past,\u201d Osler said.
Osler said that if Biden pardon recipients were to receive a subpoena as part of an investigation, they could challenge it in court by citing the sweeping comprehensive immunity conveyed by the ex-president.
It\u2019s unclear if Biden would personally be deposed to establish that he consented to the pardons being sent to be auto-penned \u2014 which could be a humiliating moment for the 82-year-old Democrat.
Osler, a former federal prosecutor, notes that Trump \u201cran the whole time in 2016 on lock up Hillary Clinton, and then there really wasn\u2019t even an investigation\u201d after he assumed power of her use of a private email server for classified information as secretary of state.
An investigation into people who do have pardons, even if they aren\u2019t prosecuted, \u201ccould lead to other people who potentially aren\u2019t in Congress or don\u2019t have the same set of defenses or pardons \u2014 that has happened many times,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n