BIDEN: THE AUTOPEN YEARS
Of all of President Trump’s zany ideas — making boring, self-righteous Canada the 51st state, we take Gaza, Perkins Coie lawyers banned from federal buildings — his claim that Joe Biden’s pardons are invalid because they were signed with an autopen is a winner.
As discussed last week, Biden used the pardons not to show mercy to specific individuals, but to change the law. We’re told that no one may ever challenge a president’s clemencies, because the pardon power is “plenary.” But however plenary it is, it cannot be so plenary as to allow a president to eliminate the legislative and judicial branches. Biden’s blanket pardons of entire classes of crimes and punishments do just that.