Senator Adam B. Schiff on Monday rejected it as an unfounded threat from President Trump, broadside over the weekend. President Trump argued that Schiff and others could still face an investigation into the actions covered by late pardons issued by President Biden.
“Your threat will not threaten us,” a California Democrat wrote to X:
Schiff, who was long elected last year to fill the Senate seat by the late Senator Diane Feinstein, is one of those who received pardons from Biden on his final days of president, despite personally discouraging the move.
Schiff, who previously served at home, led the selection committee to help investigate attacks on Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The committee’s work led to Trump being fired up by the second home to incite the uprising, an attempt to block the transfer of power to Biden.
Before leaving office, Biden issued an amnesty stating that he had done nothing wrong but was designed to protect individuals who could still target Trump’s retaliation. It included members of the Select Committee, including Schiff, one of Trump’s most vocal critics.
Trump has denounced Biden’s pardon since they were issued. But he took it a step further with a Sunday post on social media platform Truth Social. He adopted a conspiracy theory promoted online by right-wing experts that Biden’s amnesty was invalid because Biden’s amnesty was signed using an “auto-pen.”
This theory ignores the fact that digital signatures have been commonly used across governments and have been accepted for many years. Other presidents used autopens to sign important measures and pardons, and under President George W. Bush, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a memorandum justifying its use in 2005.
The theory also builds on the notion that Biden, now 82, was mentally absent or overly dependent on his aides towards the end of his term. Trump’s extensively empowered government efficiency advisor and the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk posted an image showing a portrait of the president on Sunday afternoon, replacing Biden with an autopen image.
Hours later, Trump, who drove Biden as the oldest president in history to take office in January, posted his remarks on the true society.
“Because of the fact that the “pardon” that sleepy Joe Biden gave to the selection committee of political thugs and many other people was made by automatic pens, this has been declared blank, empty and has no further power or effect,” Trump wrote. “In other words, Joe Biden didn’t sign them, but more importantly, he didn’t know anything about them!”
Trump also reiterated earlier claims that the Select Committee had removed evidence of “witch hunting” against him, saying that its members “should fully understand that they are the subject of investigation at the highest level.”
Trump’s remarks were the latest indication that despite his repeated promises that his administration would end the political “weaponization” of the judicial system, he intends to target Democrats for political retaliation. Trump has raised concerns that he could launch a politically motivated investigation by setting up a loyalist who supported his lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him at the highest level in the Justice Department.
Schiff said that members of the Jan. 6 committee were “all proud of what we do.”
Rep. Benny G. Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the Jan. 6 committee, reflected Schiff.
“Trump was responsible for January 6th, the first day that allowed those who defeated the police that day,” Thompson wrote in X, referring to Trump’s decision to give mercy or generous generosity to those criminally charged in the rebellion.
“We have thoroughly and legally investigated what he did and have lived the rent freely in his mind ever since. He knows his guilt,” Thompson said. “I’m not afraid of his rants that are unfounded in reality.”
