Fmr. top Biden aide admits to controlling autopen
According to The Washington Examiner, Neera Tanden, who previously served as the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and as a staff secretary and senior adviser to Biden, met with members of Congress behind closed doors on Tuesday for over four hours. The former top Biden aide testified on Tuesday that she was authorized to use the autopen while working under the Biden-Harris administration.
'As staff secretary, I was responsible for handling the flow of documents to and from the president,' Tanden told the House Oversight Committee. 'I was also authorized to direct that autopen signatures be affixed to certain categories of documents. We had a system for authorizing the use of the autopen that I inherited from prior administrations. We employed that system throughout my tenure as staff secretary.'
According to The Washington Examiner, Tanden admitted that she was authorized to direct the use of the autopen while serving as a staff secretary and senior adviser to Biden from October of 2021 to May of 2023. Tanden also testified that she stopped directing the use of the president's autopen after becoming the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.
READ MORE: 'No evidence' Biden was aware of major executive orders, watchdog says
Addressing concerns regarding who was actually in charge under the Biden administration, the former Biden aide told the House Oversight Committee, 'I had no experience in the White House that would provide any reason to question [Biden's] command as president.'
In a statement to The Washington Examiner on Tuesday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said, 'I always prefer the transcribed interview/deposition, as opposed to a committee hearing. So much more substantive.'
Pointing to the committee's investigation into the use of the autopen during the Biden-Harris administration, Comer told The Washington Examiner, 'This is the first of what will be many interviews with people that we believe were involved in the autopen scandal in the Biden administration. I think the American people want to know. I think there's a huge level of curiosity in the press corps with respect to who was actually calling the shots in the Biden administration.'
In May, Comer claimed that the American people 'deserve to know' who was 'calling the shots' in the White House under the former president's administration, warning that it was one of the 'greatest scandals of our generation.'
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