DOJ signals it’s still digging into Biden autopen use despite reports probe fizzled

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TheDepartment of Justiceindicated Thursday it is still investigating the legality of former President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen despite reports that the probe has been shelved because prosecutors have been unable to identify any criminal charges to bring.

S.Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office was still looking into the Biden White House’s autopen use after theNew York Timesreported that the inquiry was recently tabled.

Pirro responded to the report in anX post on Thursday, saying the DOJ “cannot comment on ongoing investigations,” signaling the investigation remained open.

President Joe Biden signs an executive order during an event on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Aug.5, 2021.(Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The New York Times reported Wednesday that the “inquiry was quietly shelved” because the DOJ failed “to build a criminal case against Mr.Biden and his aides.”

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The Republican-led House Oversight Committee investigated the matter, interviewing several former Biden staffers.The committee alleged in a report that Biden’s use of the autopen amounted to a scandal and recommended the DOJ investigate further.

“As President Biden declined, his staff abused the autopen and a lax chain-of-command policy to effect executive actions that lack any documentation of whether they were in fact authorized,” the report read.

Trump has been eager to see accountability over the autopen, claiming on social media that any staff who used the autopen on behalf of Biden did so “illegally” and threatening the former president with perjury charges.

Biden has forcefully denied the allegations, saying in a statement last year he was in charge of decision-making.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro at the White House.

U.S.Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro speaks during a news conference on crime at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Aug.11, 2025.(Eric Lee/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)

“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,”Bidensaid.“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations.Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”

The committee had homed in on Biden’s pardons, including five controversial pardons for his family members in the final days of his presidency, saying there was a lack of “contemporaneous documentation” to corroborate that Biden directly ordered the pardons.

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The committee asked the DOJ to investigate “all of former President Biden’s executive actions, particularly clemency actions, to assess whether legal action must be taken to void any action that the former president did not, in fact, take himself.”