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Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) argued Monday on Fox News that the last-minute pardons that former President Joe Biden issued before exiting office should be considered "null and void."
"My committee, the Oversight Committee, did an investigation of the pardon that Joe Biden gave — all the pardons — and we concluded Joe Biden wasn't at the table," Comer began on "Mornings with Maria."
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The House Oversight Committee chair went on to claim that there's no evidence that Biden was ever involved in the pardon process.
"There were no meetings with Joe Biden," Comer continued. "The Constitution is clear, the president has sole authority to grant pardons … They were signed by the autopen, but there's no evidence, and that was based on all the depositions we had with all the key people in the White House during the Biden administration."
He added: "There's no evidence Joe Biden participated in the decision-making of the pardon process."
Host Maria Bartiromo questioned Comer over whether he thinks a pardon is legitimate if it was signed by autopen, a mechanical device used to replicate a human signature.
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"Well, I don't think it's so much the autopen as it is the fact that there were never any meetings that Joe Biden had with his staff on these pardons," Comer replied, claiming that the only pardon that Biden signed was for his son, Hunter Biden.
"But let's take the autopen off the table. I know there's a lot about the autopen. I don't want that to be the defense," he continued. "The defense is, there were never any scheduled meetings on his calendar, there was not a single person involved in the pardon process, in the decision-making on who authorized the autopen that ever met with Joe Biden and discussed the individual pardons."
Biden told The New York Times last year that he made every clemency decision himself, and pointed out that presidents, including Donald Trump, have used autopens.
Comer went on to argue that "that alone is more than enough evidence to declare all the pardons issued by Joe Biden in the last day of his presidency null and void."
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In the last moments of his presidency, Biden issued preemptive pardons to several of his family members in addition to Dr. Anthony Fauci. He also issued pardons to former Gen. Mark Milley and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, among others. The pardons were met with bipartisan backlash.
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