Newsmax Legal Analyst Stomps Out Notion Trump Can Just Throw Out the Biden Pardons: ‘More a Political Statement Than a Legal One’
President Donald Trump’s early Monday declaration that pardons issued by former President Joe Biden are now “VOID” does not pass muster — according to the legal analyst on right-leaning Newsmax.
Appearing on Monday’s Wake Up America, Newsmax senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano threw cold water on the notion that Trump can just throw out the pardons issued by his predecessor on the grounds that they were issued without Biden’s knowledge.
“The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime.”
Napolitano said the “necessary pardoning documents” Trump referenced do not need the president’s signature in order for them to be valid.
“As a practical matter, there’s no requirement that the president personally sign anything,” Napolitano said. “Just like there was no requirement that Donald Trump personally sign the declassification of documents that he took to his own home. The act of taking them to his home is effectively the declassification. So, Joe Biden intends to pardon A, B, C, and D. A hundred people in there… He can say to [former National Security Advisor] Jake Sullivan, ‘sign my name for me.’ Absolutely. If he did not intend, if he didn’t know about it, if somebody did it behind his back, then it’s not a valid pardon.”
Marc Short, who served as a top aide to former Vice President Mike Pence, and now serves as co-host of Wake Up America, noted that Biden publicly mentioned the potential pardons before granting them — seemingly thwarting the premise that Biden did not know they were being issued.
“That’s what the president is suggesting, is that Joe Biden didn’t know what he was doing, wasn’t aware of it,” Short said. “But I’ve seen some people pointing out that he’d referenced these pardons of the J6 committee members and things prior to leaving office. So I just don’t know how that’s gonna work.”
Napolitano concurred.
“When I read this morning what the president said — after smiling, because of the way he communicates in such a forceful way – I thought this is more a political statement than a legal one,” Napolitano said.
Watch above, via Newsmax.
