 "US President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden (L) poses with President-elect Donald Trump (2nd R) and wife Melania Trump (R) as they arrive at the White House in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025")
US President Donald Trump has ordered an investigation into Joe Biden’s actions as president, alleging that Biden’s top aides hid signs of his “cognitive decline.”
Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election, but later decided not to run again in the 2024 polls after a poor debate performance raised questions about his age and mental sharpness.
Republicans have long questioned Biden’s mental fitness , and recent reports and a book by CNN host Jake Tapper have shown that even some Democrats and people close to Biden had serious doubts about his ability to handle the job.
In a memo, Trump raised doubts about Biden using an autopen to sign pardons and other papers. An autopen is a machine that copies a person’s real signature, and presidents have used it for many years.
“This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history,” Trump wrote in the memo. “The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.”
Meanwhile, House Oversight Chairman James Comer of Kentucky, a Republican, requested transcribed interviews with five Biden aides, alleging they had participated in a “cover-up" that amounted to “one of the greatest scandals in our nation’s history.” “These five former senior advisors were eyewitnesses to President Biden’s condition and operations within the Biden White House,” Comer said in a statement.
“They must appear before the House Oversight Committee and provide truthful answers about President Biden’s cognitive state and who was calling the shots.” Interviews were requested with White House senior advisers Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn, former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, former deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed and Steve Ricchetti, a former counselor to the president.