{"id":2444948,"date":"2025-06-09T16:08:02","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T20:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ted-cruz-suggests-doj-could-prosecute-recipients-of-bidens-autopen-pardons-washington-examiner\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T16:10:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T20:10:06","slug":"ted-cruz-suggests-doj-could-prosecute-recipients-of-bidens-autopen-pardons-washington-examiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ted-cruz-suggests-doj-could-prosecute-recipients-of-bidens-autopen-pardons-washington-examiner\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Cruz suggests DOJ could prosecute recipients of Biden\u2019s \u2018autopen pardons\u2019 &#8211; Washington Examiner"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fted-cruz-suggests-doj-could-prosecute-recipients-of-bidens-autopen-pardons-washington-examiner%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2444948&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Senator Ted Cruz has raised concerns regarding the Department of Justice&#8217;s inquiry into former President Joe Biden&#8217;s use of an autopen to sign pardons, suggesting that it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/billionaire-wealth-tax-raises-legal-questions\/\" title=\"Billionaire Wealth Tax Raises Legal Questions\">raises legal questions<\/a> about the validity of those pardons. Trump has criticized Biden&#8217;s approach, claiming that the pardons are &#8220;void&#8221; since they were not directly signed by the president. Cruz noted that while Biden personally signed the pardon for his son, hunter Biden, many of the other pardons were executed through autopen. He indicated that potential prosecutions could occur for individuals who received these autopen pardons, especially if there is evidence that Biden was unaware of the pardons being granted. Cruz also highlighted the potential implications for bills signed by Biden using autopen, arguing that a legal challenge could question the validity of such signatures if it&#8217;s proven that those decisions were made without Biden&#8217;s direct directive.The White House has acknowledged the ongoing investigation into this matter, emphasizing the contentious nature of the discussion around Biden&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-demonstrates-hes-a-vegetable\/\" title=\"... Shows He&#039;s a Vegetable\">perceived cognitive decline<\/a> and the legitimacy of his actions in office.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">Ted Cruz suggests DOJ could prosecute recipients of Biden&rsquo;s &lsquo;autopen pardons&rsquo;<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_2141740\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p>Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/ted-cruz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Ted Cruz<\/a> (R-TX) highlighted the next steps that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/department-of-justice\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Department of Justice<\/a> could take in its investigation of former President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/joe-biden\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Joe Biden&rsquo;s<\/a> autopen, including whether it was used to grant myriad pardons.<\/p>\n<p>President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/donald-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Donald Trump<\/a> has called for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3431887\/trump-directs-vast-doj-investigation-biden-health-cover-up-white-house-power\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"vast investigation\">vast investigation<\/a> into the cover-up of Biden&rsquo;s cognitive decline, suggesting that Biden&rsquo;s autopen was used to conceal his decline and &ldquo;assert Article II authority.&rdquo; It comes after Trump said in March that the pardons granted by Biden were<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3349524\/trump-declares-biden-pardons-void-and-vacant\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\"> &ldquo;VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT,&rdquo;<\/a> claiming they were done via autopen and that &ldquo;Biden did not sign them.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommended-stories\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/immigration\/3435561\/ice-arrests-los-angeles\/\">Here&#8217;s who ICE arrested before protests broke out in Los Angeles<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/3435727\/brad-bondi-loses-bid-lead-dc-bar-association\/\">Brad Bondi loses bid to lead DC Bar Association<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/crime\/3435719\/tom-cotton-la-riots-cory-booker\/\">Tom Cotton corrects record that LA protests were &#8216;peaceful&#8217;<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>Assessing the &ldquo;legal significance&rdquo; of Biden&rsquo;s autopen use, Cruz said that it is reported that Biden personally signed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/3246641\/joe-biden-pardons-son-hunter-of-all-criminal-charges\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">the pardon of his son, Hunter Biden<\/a>, but that &ldquo;the rest&rdquo; of the pardons were signed through autopen. He also noted that the Constitution does not specify that pardons must be in writing, but does state that the ability to grant pardons lies with the president.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;And so what President Trump alleged is Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hunter-biden-defector-emails-pipeline-to-obama-admin-seen-as-currency\/\" title=\"Hunter ... Defector Emails: &#039;Pipeline&#039; to Obama Admin Seen as &#039;Currency&#039;\">didn&#038;rsquo<\/a>;t know about this, didn&rsquo;t know what he was doing, it was not his decision,&rdquo; Cruz explained on his podcast, &ldquo;Verdict with Ted Cruz&rdquo;. &ldquo;I think it is entirely possible that we will see the Department of Justice prosecute someone who has received one of these autopen pardons. If they prosecute someone, it&rsquo;s going to be someone for whom there is clear evidence of a <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >federal criminal violation<\/a>, but also it will be someone who there is evidence that Biden didn&rsquo;t know about it.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>    <iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OQTzp6u5bKo?si=_vIY6YEqEn7N2tmj&amp;start=1945\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>    <\/p>\n<p>In terms of finding evidence needed to prove Biden&rsquo;s lack of knowledge, Cruz said prosecutors could look at &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hunter-biden-ran-out-of-money-as-art-sales-dried-up-court-filings-say-washington-examiner\/\" title=\"Hunter ... ran out of money as art sales dried up, court filings say - Washington Examiner\">public statements&#038;rdquo<\/a>; and interviews to see whether the former president made any remarks regarding pardons.<\/p>\n<p>The senator also suggested that Biden&rsquo;s autopen use extended to bills he signed into law, citing how the Constitution states in Article I, Section 7 that a president must &ldquo;sign&rdquo; a bill before it is considered law. Cruz continued by explaining that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/olc\/opinion\/whether-president-may-sign-bill-directing-his-signature-be-affixed-it\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">a 2005 decision by the DOJ&rsquo;s Office of Legal Counsel<\/a> said that a president can sign a bill by directing a &ldquo;subordinate&rdquo; to sign through autopen, meaning an argument could be made on whether or not Biden used this method to sign bills.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/senate\/3434305\/republican-investigations-biden-health-coverup\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">GOP RALLIES AROUND ESCALATING BIDEN INVESTIGATIONS AS PARTY FEUDS ELSEWHERE ON POLICY<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;And so I fully expect there to be litigation questioning, looking for a statue where there is not a clear indication that Biden was aware of it, that he made a decision to sign it, but rather that simply you had a White House staffer say &lsquo;ok, this is our policy, let&rsquo;s sign it,&rsquo;&rdquo; Cruz said. &ldquo;And if that&rsquo;s the case, if the president did not direct that his signature be affixed to it, I think there&rsquo;s a real argument that is not a law.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3429935\/trump-biden-age-autopen-investigation-ed-martin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">The White House is backing a DOJ investigation<\/a> into Biden&rsquo;s use of the autopen, which was announced by Trump&rsquo;s pardon attorney Ed Martin. Trump has deemed Biden&rsquo;s autopen usage as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3431719\/trump-biden-investigation-autopen-use-disrespectful\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">&ldquo;disrespectful to our country,&rdquo;<\/a> accusing &ldquo;radical Left lunatics&rdquo; of using it in Biden&rsquo;s name.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script><script>!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||[],g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(\"has-featured-video\",\"true\")})}();<\/script><script>var _bp=_bp||[];_bp.push({\"div\":\"Brid_2141740\",\"obj\":{\"id\":\"27789\",\"width\":\"1280\",\"height\":\"720\",\"stickyDirection\":\"below\",\"video\":\"2141740\"}});<\/script><script defer src=\"https:\/\/services.brid.tv\/player\/build\/brid.min.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ted Cruz proposes DOJ may prosecute those granted Biden&#8217;s autopen pardons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2632,"featured_media":2444949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Ted-Cruz-autopen-scaled-1024x682.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[56823,3620,7076,32603,32090],"class_list":["post-2444948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-autopen-pardons","tag-biden","tag-doj","tag-political-news","tag-ted-cruz"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Ted-Cruz-autopen-scaled-1024x682.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2632"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2444948"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2444952,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444948\/revisions\/2444952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2444949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}