President Donald Trump said that he thinks Joe Biden didn't really agree with many of his administration's lax border security policies, instead suggesting that those surrounding the former president took advantage of his declining faculties and utilized an autopen feature in the White House to pass radical directives pertaining to the border.
The comments came during a press conference from the Oval Office on Friday, during which Trump signaled that investigators are zeroing in on exactly who authorized officials in the White House to sign important documents for Biden using the autopen.
"I think the autopen is going to become one of the great scandals of all time, because you have somebody operating it, or a number of people operating," Trump told reporters. "I knew Joe Biden, Joe Biden wasn't in favor of opening up borders, letting 21 million people into this from prisons and mental institutions and gang members. He wasn't into that at all. And, you know who signed these? Who signed these orders, proclamations and all of the different things that he signed that said our country so far back?"
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House Republicans, led by Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, launched an investigation earlier this month aimed at determining whether Biden, who was in declining health during the final months of his presidency, was mentally fit to authorize the use of the autopen. Comer said this week he was "open" to dragging Biden before the House to answer questions about the matter if need be.
"I understand he signed almost everything with an auto-pen. It's a very dangerous thing. It really means you're not president," Trump added in his comments to reporters Friday.
Trump pointed to Biden's legacy as a "sort of a moderate person," to explain his reasoning why he thinks Biden was not in favor of all of his administration's open border policies, adding that "he wasn't a person that would allow a murderers to come into our country."
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"I don't believe it was Joe Biden, I really don't," Trump reiterated. "He wasn't a person that was in favor of transgender for anybody that wanted it, to take kids out of families, etc., etc."
A new book, an audio transcript of Biden's special counsel testimony, and a shocking cancer diagnosis have all renewed focus on how Biden's cognitive decline may have been worse than the public knew.
Last week, Comer sent out letters to five of the former president's closest confidants, including his former doctor in the White House, seeking further answers about Biden's cognitive health while in office. All five have made contact with the Oversight Committee, but Comer has threatened subpoena power if they refuse to testify.
"Look, I would love to ask Joe Biden a lot of questions, but right now, we're starting with the staffers who were operating the autopen," Comer said, according to the New York Post. "We're going to bring the physician, Dr. O'Connor, in, because he definitely was not telling the truth about Joe Biden's health."
