I hope you like worms, because Trump knows how to open entire cases at a time.
This controversy is akin to the War Powers Act. Neither Congress nor any president has pressed the issue all the way to SCOTUS because neither side wants to lose the debate. Instead, there is an uneasy truce where presidents color inside the lines but assert on the side that they can abandon the WPA if exigent circumstances arise. Seeing as Congress' only remedy in the event circumstances arise is impeachment and/or withdrawal of funding, Congress quietly tolerates such assertions while praying nothing every push the matter.
Add birthright citizenship to this list.
He is correct that Biden's auto-pen signature should not be recognized; but if Biden's signatures are affirmed by the courts the door is thrown wide open to similar abuses and there will be little if any remedy. Any staffer of any future administration will be able to turn their personal axe into national policy. However, if the courts side with Trump everything Biden did becomes subject to similar scrutiny. That sounds wonderful, but you need to remember we're dealing with a judiciary that sought every procedural excuse to avoid allowing challenges to 2020 ballots because none of them wanted to be the one to throw the nation into electoral chaos. They decided it was better to just kill the controversy, bury the corpse, and make the country wait 4 years for a do-over. I do not see them willing to do this for Biden's entire term.
Obama used the pen, the most famous example was documents signed in DC while he vacationed in Hawaii. Obama relied on a Bush 43 memorandum concerning the auto-pen; but, unlike the manifestly vegetative Biden who couldn't hold a fart let alone a conversation, Obama could at least express his assent to the documents bearing his name. If it was good enough for Bush, it was good enough for Obama. Repetition becomes practice and practice becomes policy. I think this lends weight to the chance the courts will ultimately affirm use of the auto-pen for Biden while providing unction for Trump and Congress to coordinate to unscrew this pooch. Thanks, George.
It also has to be recognized that Biden has not been formally diagnosed as incompetent. Sure, we can all see it, but that has no legal bearing. It is unrealistic for the courts to apply such a finding to an entire presidential term.
However, if we do want to challenge Biden's pardons, I think there is another argument I would like to see explored: An individual cannot be pardoned for matters the government has not taken cognizance of. In other words, the government would have to at least be able to officially state formal recognition of facts to satisfy the probable cause threshold of potential criminal offenses. It's reasonable to ask if a president could pardon fraud only to learn later that a homicide had been conducted in the course of the pardoned offense. Would a president be allowed to say the homicide was previously unknown and had it been known at the time; the president would not have granted the pardon?
