    [Senate Hearing 119-186]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 119-186

                     UNFIT TO SERVE: HOW THE BIDEN COVER-UP
                             ENDANGERED AMERICA AND
                          UNDERMINED THE CONSTITUTION

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                        ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                 JUNE 18, 2025

                                   __________

                              Serial No. J-119-24

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

                    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                            www.judiciary.senate.gov
                                www.govinfo.gov
                                   ______

                     U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    61-845                    WASHINGTON : 2026

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                      CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa, Chairman

    LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina    RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois,
    JOHN CORNYN, Texas                       Ranking Member
    MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah                 SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
    TED CRUZ, Texas                      AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
    JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri                CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
    THOM TILLIS, North Carolina          RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
    JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana              MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
    MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee          CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
    ERIC SCHMITT, Missouri               ALEX PADILLA, California
    KATIE BOYD BRITT, Alabama            PETER WELCH, Vermont
    ASHLEY MOODY, Florida                ADAM B. SCHIFF, California

                 Kolan Davis, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
             Joe Zogby, Democratic Chief Counsel and Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                       Page

    Grassley, Hon. Charles E.........................................     1
        Prepared statement...........................................    38
    Durbin, Hon. Richard J...........................................     2
    Cornyn, Hon. John................................................     4
    Schmitt, Hon. Eric...............................................     6
    Welch, Hon. Peter................................................     9

                                   WITNESSES

    Harrison, John...................................................    12
        Prepared statement...........................................    41
        Responses to written questions...............................    55
    Spicer, Sean.....................................................    15
        Prepared statement...........................................    48
        Responses to written questions...............................    58
    Wold, Theodore...................................................    14
        Prepared statement...........................................    51
        Responses to written questions...............................    59

                                    APPENDIX

    Items submitted for the record...................................    67

                     UNFIT TO SERVE: HOW THE BIDEN COVER-UP
                             ENDANGERED AMERICA AND
                          UNDERMINED THE CONSTITUTION

                                  ----------

                            WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2025

                                  United States Senate,
                                    Committee on the Judiciary,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15 a.m., in
    Room 106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Charles E.
    Grassley, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Grassley [presiding], Cornyn, Cruz,
    Hawley, Tillis, Kennedy, Blackburn, Schmitt, Britt, Moody,
    Durbin, and Welch.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. GRASSLEY,
                 A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF IOWA

        Chairman Grassley. Good morning. I would like to welcome
    everyone to this Judiciary hearing. We have multiple Member
    statements today, so without objection, I will introduce my
    longer statement into the hearing record.
        [The information appears as a submission for the record.]
        Chairman Grassley. Today's hearing is about competency,
    corruption, and coverup within the Biden administration. Simply
    put, the last administration was rudderless. From one crisis to
    another, the Biden administration failed and faltered. The
    partisan media did their best to cover up those failures.
        Having discussed these issues with my colleagues, Senators
    Cornyn and Schmitt, who requested to lead this hearing, all of
    us agreed that this Committee must discuss this important
    matter.
        An important part of this discussion involves the last
    administration's weaponization of law enforcement against Trump
    and his associates, which was done to try and win an election.
    That, too, they tried to cover up. Since I became Chairman of
    this Committee, my investigative work has exposed how
    weaponization was done. Look at the FBI's Arctic Frost
    investigation, which ultimately became one of Jack Smith's
    cases against President Trump, based upon records that I have
    made public. The case's origin was anti-Trump FBI agent
    Thibault and his merry band of artisans and partisans. The
    records indicate that the opening of Arctic Frost was an
    intentionally designed vehicle by which the Biden
    administration would ultimately prosecute their primary
    political opponent, President Trump.
        Then I made emails public relating to the Biden
    administration's political investigation into Peter Navarro.
    Thibault and his other anti-Trump agent, Walter Giardina, were
    also involved in that case. Whistleblowers have told me that
    Special Agent Giardina openly stated his desire to investigate
    Trump, even if it meant false predication. Whistleblowers have
    also told me that Jack Smith's deputy, J.P. Cooney, wanted to
    open more cases on Trump. He allegedly justified using
    compulsory process to obtain more information merely based upon
    partisan news outlets. And guess who was also allegedly
    involved in those communications? Well, that is the same
    person, Special Agent Walter Giardina.
        All of this is more evidence of law enforcement
    weaponization that would have never been the light of day but
    for whistleblowers. I will have more to say about this matter
    later today in another forum.
        Then we have the Biden FBI's anti-Catholic Richmond memo.
    That memo used the shoddy research of the radical Southern
    Poverty Law Center to accuse traditional Catholics of being
    violent extremists. Based on the records that I released the
    other week, there wasn't just one FBI document they used bias
    anti-Catholic sources but over a dozen. And more FBI field
    offices were involved than we have been led to believe.
        It wasn't just the Biden and Wray FBI that failed the
    people. Recently, I released a record showing that the Biden
    Health and Human Services also failed to address the backlog of
    over 65,000 reports expressing concern for unaccompanied
    children. This included 7,346 reports related to trafficking.
    Three dozen cases have been accepted by U.S. attorneys for
    prosecution with 11 arrests and three convictions so far.
        The Biden administration had a responsibility to do right
    by the American people. By any metric, they failed. The
    question is, what did the President actually know or even
    understand who was actually running the Government? But
    regardless, the buck stops with the President, and President
    Biden will have to answer to history for what has happened the
    last 4 years.
        Now, I am going to turn over the opportunity to speak to
    Ranking Member Durbin for his opening remarks. And after that,
    Senator Cornyn is going to take the Chair and Senator Cornyn
    and Chairman Schmitt are going to lead the rest of the hearing.
        Proceed, Senator Durbin.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN,
               A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

        Senator Durbin. Thank you, Chairman Grassley.
        This Committee has oversight responsibility over the
    Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and
    the Department of Homeland Security. We have a constitutional
    duty to hold these agencies accountable with public hearings.
        By this date in my first year as Chairman of the Senate
    Judiciary Committee, we had already held two major oversight
    hearings with Biden administration agency heads, including one
    with the FBI Director Wray on domestic terrorism threats. So
    far this year, the Republican majority in this Committee has
    not held a single oversight hearing, despite numerous critical
    challenges facing the Nation that are under our jurisdiction.
        In the last week alone, several events have demanded this
    Committee's immediate attention: the horrific assassination in
    Minnesota, the treatment of our colleague Senator Padilla by
    Federal agents in Los Angeles, and President Trump's
    unprecedented deployment of the U.S. military in Los Angeles.
    We should hear without delay from Attorney General Bondi and
    FBI Director Patel about what they are doing to address the
    unacceptable political violence in our country, including
    threats to Article III judges and justices, as well as Members
    of Congress. And we need to hear from the Homeland Security
    Secretary Noem about the treatment of our colleague Senator
    Padilla and this administration's mass deportation campaign
    against immigrants.
        But instead of exercising this constitutional oversight
    duty, my Republican colleagues are holding this hearing.
    Apparently, armchair diagnosing former President Biden is more
    important than the issues of grave concern which I have
    mentioned. To take a few examples of the issues this Committee
    should be addressing, the Trump administration has removed
    dozens of senior career prosecutors and FBI officials with
    decades of national security expertise, leaving our Nation more
    vulnerable to terrorism and other national security threats.
    This should be explained to this Committee.
        The Justice Department has diverted hundreds of law
    enforcement agents away from combating cartels, drug
    trafficking, and gun violence to participate in President
    Trump's mass deportation campaign. This should be addressed in
    an open hearing of this Committee.
        The Justice Department is also turning a blind eye to
    corruption. The administration has gutted the Department of
    Justice's public integrity session which oversees political
    corruption just as the President's shameful crypto scheme
    unfolds. And the administration has removed Department of
    Justice's career ethics officials and shut down the office
    charged with investigating misconduct by DOJ attorneys.
        With these internal checks gone and this Committee asleep
    at the wheel, it is no surprise that Attorney General Bondi
    signed off on President Trump to accept Qatar's gift of a $400
    million luxury airliner, despite the fact that the Attorney
    General was previously a registered foreign agent for the
    Qatari Government. We are still waiting for her official
    finding on this gift transfer.
        And it is no surprise that Department of Justice official
    Emil Bove tried to strike a corrupt bargain with New York Mayor
    Eric Adams, dropping public corruption charges in exchange for
    the mayor's cooperation with Trump agenda mass deportations.
        When it comes to these historic, compelling issues, the GOP
    majority tells America to move along, nothing to see here.
    Let's revisit this administration of a previous President in
    this hearing. Let's revisit a 20-year-old precedent on the use
    of an autopen.
        And I know my Republican colleagues are eager to discuss
    President Biden's pardons, but why are they ignoring the actual
    pardon crisis that is taking place right now, President Trump's
    pay-to-play scheme? Last month, President Trump pardoned Paul
    Walczak, who pleaded guilty in 2024 to withholding over $7
    million of taxes from his employees' paychecks and failing to
    pay them to the Internal Revenue Service. What warranted Mr.
    Walczak's swift pardon by President Trump? His pardon
    application explicitly cited millions of dollars his mother
    raised for President Trump's campaigns and other efforts to
    support the President.
        But that was not enough. It was 3 weeks after Mr. Walczak's
    mother attended a million-dollar-a-person Trump fundraiser in
    April of this year that Mr. Walczak was miraculously receiving
    his pardon, and now he no longer must pay $4.4 million to the
    taxpayers of this country. That is one example of the many
    pardons granted to President Trump's wealthy donors and
    political supporters.
        Of course, these pay-to-play pardons are in addition to
    more than 1,500 January 6 rioters who received a blanket pardon
    from President Trump, including 169 who violently assaulted law
    enforcement officials.
        And we are going to make a question of cognitive ability? I
    think we should consider what happened in Alberta, Canada, just
    this week where President Trump was at a press conference with
    British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and said the following,
    ``You all know the great PM of the U.K., and we just signed a
    document,'' President Trump continued. ``We just signed it so
    we have our trade agreement with the EU.'' Britain has not been
    a party to the EU for 5 years, but President Trump made a
    statement which clearly was wrong.
        Now, I would like you to see a short video that includes
    some other examples of cognitive ability.
        [Video is shown.]
        Senator Durbin. Do any of these statements raise a question
    of cognitive ability? You be the judge. If my colleagues are
    truly interested in issues of Presidential succession and
    disability under the 25th Amendment, I would suggest they
    embark on this constitutional journey with a proposed
    amendment, not today's political adventure.
        I yield.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN CORNYN,
                 A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

        Senator Cornyn. Good morning. I want to thank Chairman
    Grassley for convening this hearing and my colleague Senator
    Schmitt from Missouri for co-chairing this with me as we
    examine the constitutional crisis posed by the coverup of
    President Biden's cognitive decline.
        The U.S. Constitution provides, as we all know, for three
    co-equal branches. Today, we are concerned about the Chief
    Executive, the President of the United States. As we know, the
    Chief Executive, the head of the executive branch, enforces the
    laws, appoints high-ranking officials, serves as Commander-in-
    Chief of our armed forces, can issue pardons, and can veto and
    advocate for legislation. But what are we to do when the
    President is incapable of performing these duties?
        Last June, the American public saw with their own eyes what
    many knew to be true but would not dare to admit publicly. Our
    sitting Commander-in-Chief was suffering from severe cognitive
    decline, as evident by this video, which I will now show.
        [Video is shown.]
        Senator Cornyn. As we now know, there was a conspiracy to
    hide the President's true condition by his family, by his
    staff, by the media, and many elected officials. Jake Tapper
    and Alex Thompson, who co-authored a book entitled Original
    Sin, that book amounted to a mea culpa by the mainstream media.
    But they summed up the problem when they wrote this: ``What the
    world saw at Joe Biden's one and only 2024 debate was not an
    anomaly. It was not a cold. It was not someone who was under-or
    overprepared. It was not someone who was just a little tired.
    It was the natural result of an 81-year-old man whose
    capabilities had been diminishing for years.'' Biden, his
    family, and his team let their self-interest and their fear of
    another Trump term justify an attempt to put an at-times addled
    old man in the Oval Office for four more years.
        So make no mistake about it, this was a constitutional
    crisis bigger than President Biden, bigger than any single
    election, and one that cannot be absolved by the collective
    apology of the press and an election where the President's
    party lost.
        Current events such as we are experiencing today in the
    Middle East are a prime example of why we need a President with
    his full cognitive abilities making important decisions
    involving war and peace. We should know, but we don't yet know
    precisely what should happen when a President is unable to
    perform his or her constitutional duties, and that is the
    purpose of today's hearing.
        There are many unanswered questions from this scandal,
    questions that the authors of Original Sin fail to address in
    their book, questions that are foundational to the proper
    functioning of our Government. We will address those here and
    shine a light on exactly what went on in the White House during
    the Biden Presidency. We simply cannot ignore what transpired
    because President Biden is no longer in office.
        With a compromised President, our Government's very
    legitimacy and capacity to function was undermined. The
    American people paid a price, from President Biden's handling
    of the border crisis to the disastrous events we saw unfold in
    Afghanistan. It is absolutely imperative that Congress grapple
    with these difficult questions, no matter how much our
    Democratic colleagues would like to simply sweep it under the
    rug.
        We need to know who was in charge during the last months of
    the Biden administration. Was it his wife, his chief of staff,
    nameless others? None of these people were elected by the
    American people, nor were they authorized by the Constitution
    and laws of the United States to carry out the duties of the
    President of the United States.
        The 25th Amendment provides a roadmap for succession in
    instances of Presidential incapacity. Section 4 gives the Vice
    President and a majority of the President's Cabinet the
    authority to challenge the President's ability to carry out the
    functions of his office subject to a vote in Congress. But in
    this instance, the Vice President and the cabinet, the very
    ones authorized by the 25th Amendment to question the
    President's capacity, they did nothing.
        Are there penalties when the cabinet and the Vice President
    refuse to carry out their duties under Section 4 of the 25th
    Amendment? Should there be more accountability? The framers of
    this amendment acknowledged that the execution of that
    amendment would depend on the good faith of the cabinet and the
    Vice President. But Biden's Cabinet and the Vice President did
    not act in good faith. They acted in their political and
    personal self-interest.
        This is the great paradox of self-government. Many of the
    rules, traditions, and institutions that sustain our republic
    are self-enforcing. The health and legitimacy of our democratic
    republic rests on the character of the men and women who serve
    in government. As a government, it is imperative that we have
    clear contingency plans when emergency strikes. And yes, it is
    an emergency when we have a sitting President who is unable to
    discharge the duties of that office.
        The concerns raised by this incident stretch far beyond the
    bounds of partisan politics. I will note that few of my
    Democratic colleagues are here today. Thank you to Senator
    Welch from Vermont for being here, leaving us with no other
    option than to take the boycotting of this hearing as an
    admission of guilt for their role in this crisis.
        We must not turn away from the search for answers. And it
    is not an overstatement to say that the future of our country
    could one day hinge on how we choose to act or not act on this
    very issue.
        I look forward to hearing from our witnesses this morning
    as we examine the difficult but necessary questions that must
    be answered from this monumental scandal.
        I yield to my colleague from Missouri, Senator Schmitt, who
    will now co-chair the hearing.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ERIC SCHMITT,
               A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI

        Senator Schmitt. Thank you. I do want to begin by
    expressing my sincere gratitude to Chairman Grassley for
    granting me the privilege of co-chairing this Committee with my
    esteemed colleague, Senator Cornyn.
        The title of the hearing, ``Unfit to Serve,'' captures a
    sobering and undeniable truth. President Biden was mentally
    unfit to carry out the responsibilities of the most powerful
    office in the world. Given his mental incapacity, the American
    people deserve to know who was running the country the last 4
    years.
        Today, as we seek to answer this question, it is deeply
    disappointing, but not surprising, that most Democrats on this
    Committee have chosen to all but boycott the hearing and have
    failed to call a single witness. They have chosen to ignore
    this issue like they ignored President Biden's decline. Their
    absence speaks volumes, an implicit admission that the truth is
    too inconvenient to face. By refusing to engage in this
    critical examination, they abdicate their responsibility to the
    American people. This de facto boycott is not just a refusal to
    participate. It is a refusal to serve the American people who
    deserve answers about who was truly leading their Government.
        President Biden's decline did not suddenly begin in June of
    2024. It was a persistent and obvious truth that was evident
    for years to anyone who was willing to see it. This reality did
    not require special insider knowledge or investigative
    reporting to uncover. We didn't need Jake Tapper and Alex
    Thompson to tell us what millions of Americans could freely
    observe with their own eyes. The truth was glaringly obvious.
    Anyone who was paying attention could tell that the emperor had
    no clothes.
        Nearly a year ago, I took the historic step as the first
    U.S. Senator to formally call for the invocation of the 25th
    Amendment against President Biden. I sent letters to every
    cabinet secretary and the Vice President laying out the urgent
    case. Our Nation was effectively without a leader.
        [Poster is displayed.]
        The absence of a functioning President wasn't an abstract
    issue. It inflicted severe consequences on our Nation,
    consequences that touched every aspect of American life. On
    border policy, our Nation's borders were handed over to the
    radical left-wing element of the administration, throwing open
    our borders to 15 million illegal aliens, an unprecedented
    immigration crisis that pulled our Nation into chaos. On
    foreign policy, haphazard and reckless discussions, decisions
    placed our warfighters in jeopardy, escalated conflicts around
    the globe, and led to a catastrophic humiliation on the world
    stage that claimed the lives of 13 American soldiers, including
    one Missourian, during the disastrous withdrawal from Kabul.
        On the economy, rampant inflation drove up the cost of
    life's essentials, making them unaffordable to countless
    hardworking families. In the realm of culture, the regime
    censored free speech, closed down churches, targeted
    traditional Catholics and parents at school board meetings, and
    let an unelected class of left-wing radicals degrade, attack,
    and lie about our history and our heritage. A poisonous anti-
    Western, anti-American ideology that had once been confined to
    elite university classrooms suddenly became the official White
    House policy.
        [Poster is displayed.]
        All of this was done not in isolation. It was sustained,
    defended, and covered for by an alliance of elite institutions
    from the media to the so-called expert class, to Big Tech, to
    the Federal bureaucracy itself. When we speak of collusion
    among elites or the so-called deep state, we are accused of
    being conspiracy theorists. But this was no theory. It was
    plain and overt, out in the open for everyone to see.
        For 4 years, we had a President who could barely string
    together coherent sentences after 6 p.m. Yet, this glaring fact
    went unreported, undiscussed, and unaddressed. Why? Because the
    Democrat Party, corporate media, Federal bureaucracy, and Big
    Tech companies collaborated to conceal the truth from the
    American people, not out of ignorance, but because it advanced
    their own interests. In the absence of a functioning President,
    chaos took hold. An empty vessel occupying the Oval Office
    becomes a puppet for those surrounding him.
        Many elected officials, including some in this Chamber,
    have used autopens, a mechanical device that replicates a
    signature. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, so long
    as we are the ones actually making the decisions. But under
    President Biden, the autopen became a troubling symbol, a
    symbol of an absentee President in an executive branch directed
    by nameless, faceless aides that no one outside of Washington,
    DC. had ever heard of and no one ever voted for. It was the
    autopen Presidency, a government run by Committee rather than a
    leader chosen by the American people.
        By contrast, love him or hate him, we all know President
    Trump is in command of his Presidency, and he is the one
    calling the shots. It is plain as day that President Trump is
    actively making the decisions, whether announced via Truth
    Social or signature.
        Under President Biden, that transparency and certainty
    evaporated. We cannot confidently say that the decisions
    bearing his signature were the will of the President or his
    politburo. That goes doubly for his social media posts,
    including his decision to drop out of the 2024 Presidential
    election. We did not know if it was his decision or posted on
    his behalf after a palace coup because President Biden was
    mentally unfit to serve. The corporate media played an
    indispensable role in this coverup, systematically suppressing
    discussion of President Biden's condition.
        As we will demonstrate in the video evidence presented
    today, dissenting voices were silenced, and the truth was
    buried. It was not a passive oversight. It was a deliberate
    campaign to shield the narrative that protected the interests
    of the most powerful. Even Members of this very Committee, some
    of whom served alongside then-Senator Biden when he Chaired
    this very Committee, defended his mental acuity for years.
        Now, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson offer a convenient
    narrative to absolve everyone involved. The media lacked
    access. The family was overtly protective. The cabinet was
    incompetent. And Robert Hur said the President was merely a
    well-meaning man in aviators who liked ice cream.
        It is the tired, evasive refrain of the politician caught
    in a lie. Mistakes were made. Yes, mistakes were made. And
    every participant in the coverup, from the media to the
    cabinet, is jointly and severally liable for what may very well
    be the greatest deception in our Nation's history. Even their
    apologies today are framed in a way that absolved them from
    responsibility for this crime against the American people. They
    apologized for having ``missed the story.'' They didn't miss
    anything. They actively chose to ignore or run cover for the
    people in power.
        The Biden Cabinet rarely met. And some members, like former
    Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, deliberately
    distanced themselves from the President to maintain plausible
    deniability.
        Even Members of this Committee were part of the great
    deception. The Monday after Biden announced he would not seek
    re-election, one Member called the idea of invoking the 25th
    Amendment ``outrageous,'' insisting the debate performance does
    not reflect who he is or his capacity to govern as President of
    the United States. Another Member repeatedly vouched for
    Biden's fitness, declaring, ``Joe Biden is fit, capable, and
    ready to serve another term.'' And later, ``This is a man who
    is sharp, who is on top of his game, who knows what is going
    on.'' Yet another, during the 2020 Democrat Presidential
    primary, alluded to Biden's decline, but quickly retracted his
    remarks when it became politically expedient. After the debate,
    yet another Member praised Biden's strong delivery of remarks
    to NATO as evidence of his capacity to lead.
        The purpose of this hearing is not to interrogate Biden
    officials or partisan reporters, though they should be held
    accountable. Instead, our focus is to identify and rectify the
    systemic weaknesses that allowed this situation to fester
    unchecked.
        Our distinguished witnesses, experts in White House
    transparency, operational procedures, and Executive power, will
    assist us in diagnosing these flaws. While the House and Senate
    pursue factfinding missions to hold these responsible to
    account, our mission here is to chart a path forward. We cannot
    allow another weekend at Biden's Presidency with its glaring
    national security vulnerabilities papered over by an autopen.
        The D.C. establishment might argue that the governance of
    shadowy, unelected figures is a legitimate substitution for a
    functioning President. It is not. The American people cast
    their vote for a President, not a faceless apparatus.
        Article II of the Constitution vests immense authority in
    the President of the United States, a single individual. With
    that extraordinary power comes equally profound responsibility.
    At the Constitutional Convention, our Founding Fathers debated
    giving the President the title of Defender of the Rights of the
    American People.
        The security and well-being of the American people and
    their rights must take precedent over personal ambition. It is
    often said that power corrupts. I believe that power reveals.
    Over the past 4 years, this coverup laid bare a disturbing
    reality. The left and the corporate media placed their pursuit
    of power above the welfare of your families and your country.
    They dismissed your observations, urging you not to trust your
    own eyes.
        We have a solemn duty to call this what it is, an
    abdication of constitutional duty. As was stated in Federalist
    51, ambition must check ambition. If a President is mentally
    unfit to serve, we need a dependable mechanism to, at the very
    least, ensure that the truth reaches the American people.
        I look forward to the insights this hearing will yield and
    from our expert witnesses in the discussion that will follow.
    The public is counting on us to ensure this never happens again
    because we won't always be fortunate enough to have a leader
    like President Trump who is so unmistakably in command.
        Senator Welch.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PETER WELCH,
                A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT

        Senator Welch. Thank you very much. Senator Cornyn
    indicated the view of the hearing is that there was a
    constitutional crisis as a result of the coverup of President
    Biden's decline. I believe there is a constitutional crisis. It
    is the collapse of Congress asserting its Article I authority
    to make decisions about the well-being of the American people.
        What has this Senate debated in the months that we have
    been here, other than nominations? Have we discussed the
    possible war with Iran? Have we had a serious discussion on the
    floor about the massive and mounting debt? Have we had any
    discussion about the abdication of congressional spending
    authority by the impoundment actions of an administration? Have
    we had a discussion about climate change that is causing havoc
    throughout the world? What we have done is gone to the floor
    and debate--we haven't debated. We have gone to the floor and
    voted on nominations.
        There is another issue of great concern to me because I
    have enormous respect for my colleagues. Each and every one of
    us who was elected, it is the highest honor of our life. Each
    and every one of us came here because it is in our bones that
    we want to try to do something beneficial and make life better
    for the people we represent. And we have different points of
    view. But instead of this Congress debating those different
    points of view, about oil exploration, or about clean energy,
    about a good healthcare system, what we do is turn that debate
    into personal accusations of motivations, of coverup, of
    conspiracy, of bad character, of demeaning folks who disagree
    with us so we never get to the discussion about how do we have
    a healthcare system that works for the people in Texas, the
    people in Louisiana, and the people in Vermont. We never get to
    the discussion about, are we going to deny the reality of what
    you know is true, climate change, and how do we address that in
    a way that maintains a strong economy and actually builds a
    strong economy?
        We get into the accusations that if you disagree with me,
    you are a left-wing radical. We get into these discussions that
    if you disagree with me, you are a Marxist. We get into these
    discussions that fan the perception of the people we all
    represent, who desire nothing more than be able to take care of
    their families, live with some security, make a contribution in
    the communities where they live, that if a person disagrees
    with you, they are a bad person. We will get nowhere with that
    approach.
        Now, so many of the things that happened in the Biden
    administration I totally supported, and many of you totally
    opposed. Those are policy disagreements. He came in with COVID.
    We got through COVID. We can debate about how we did it, but
    that was an accomplishment. The American Rescue Plan, we had
    the biggest jobs creation in the history of the country. The
    Chips and Science Act, acknowledging that we have to have a
    strong economy and be able to have the best chips here
    manufactured in the United States, we did that. The Federal
    Disaster Program improved significantly, and I can go on and
    on.
        And I will take up something where we didn't do well, and
    that is immigration. You won that argument, but does it mean
    that those who disagreed with you along the way were bad
    people, should be labeled Marxist, should be condemned?
        The American people ultimately get to decide, but to the
    extent that we have a responsibility that we share, Republicans
    and Democrats, whichever side of the issue you are on, it is to
    debate the issue and not debase the people who are in the
    debate.
        That is what I see is the crisis that we are facing in this
    Congress, our refusal to engage in the serious discussion about
    the issues that are having such an impact on the people we
    represent.
        And I am going to tell you what I think is a coverup. I
    think this Big Beautiful Bill done by reconciliation, whereby
    decision of the majority, not a single member of the minority
    who represent half of the citizens of this country can even be
    in the room when the terms and the policies are being debated.
    We are not there.
        That is what I call a coverup because our responsibility,
    our responsibility to the people we all represent is to debate
    healthcare, is to debate our budget, is to debate about the
    debt that we are going to be leaving future generations. And
    there is no debate in what is going to be decided in the
    private backrooms amid discussions, not even of all the
    Republicans, but of some Republican leaders. That is what is
    going to have a lasting impact on the people every one of us
    represents, whether it be in Missouri, Texas, North Carolina,
    or Louisiana, or Vermont. We can't even do our jobs because we
    are not allowed to be in the room.
        So, sure, we can enjoy the pleasure of looking back at the
    Biden administration, and then getting into the weeds about
    when and where and how the President was acting at any given
    moment. But, you know, I asked myself before I get into a
    debate, and before I do anything, why am I doing it? And if I
    do it, does it have the potential to make things better for the
    people I represent? And if the answer is no, it doesn't have
    any opportunity to help the folks in Vermont, I just shut up.
    That is what I do because it won't help. What we are doing
    right now won't help. It will not help.
        And I asked myself, why in the world are we doing it? But
    we know the answer to that, because the politics that has been
    embraced in this Congress is the politics of accusation, of
    demeaning adversaries, of deflecting from engaging in the hard
    discussion about hard issues and trying to come to some common
    agreement that is going to be to the mutual benefit of all of
    the people that we represent.
        I yield back.
        Senator Schmitt [presiding]. Thank you. We will now
    introduce the witnesses. First up, from my left to right, John
    Harrison.
        John C. Harrison is the James Madison Distinguished
    Professor and Class of 1941 Research Professor at the
    University of Virginia School of Law. He is a graduate of the
    University of Virginia and Yale Law School.
        After graduating from law school, he engaged in the private
    practice of law, then clerked for Judge Robert Bork on the U.S.
    Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. From 1983 to 1993, he
    worked at the U.S. Department of Justice, including as deputy
    assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel. He
    joined the law faculty at the University of Virginia in 1993.
        In 2008, he was on leave from the law school to serve as
    counselor on international law and legal advisor to the United
    States Department of State. His principal academic fields are
    structural constitutional law, administrative law, Federal
    courts, and constitutional history.
        Skipping over the empty seat to Theo Wold, Theo Wold is a
    visiting fellow for law and technology policy at the Heritage
    Foundation. Wold is the former solicitor general of Idaho.
    Previously, Wold served as the acting assistant attorney
    general in the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of
    Justice and deputy assistant to the President for domestic
    policy under President Donald Trump.
        Wold clerked at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
    of Columbia Circuit for Judge Janice Rogers Brown and the U.S.
    District Court for the District of Puerto Rico for Judge Jose
    Fuste. Wold is an intelligence officer in the United States Air
    Force. Wold holds degrees from Georgetown University where he
    studied government and English and from the University of St.
    Andrews where he studied English literature and a JD from the
    University of Notre Dame. Mr. Wold and his wife have five
    children and live in Boise, Idaho.
        Sean Spicer, Mr. Spicer served as the 30th White House
    press secretary, is the author of four best-selling books, and
    the host of the Sean Spicer Show. Mr. Spicer previously served
    as Communications director and chief strategist of the
    Republican National Committee and worked for several Members of
    Congress. He currently serves on the Board of Visitors of the
    U.S. Naval Academy, holds master's degrees from the U.S. Navy
    War College, and is in his 26th year of service in the U.S.
    Navy. Mr. Spicer is a native of Rhode Island and resides in
    Virginia.
        It is the tradition of this Committee that all witnesses
    will be sworn in. If you would please rise, I will swear you in
    now. Raise your right hand.
        [Witnesses are sworn in.]
        Senator Schmitt. Thank you. And now we will start with you,
    Mr. Harrison, with your opening statement.
        Senator Schmitt. Press your mic there. Thank you.

      STATEMENT OF JOHN HARRISON, THE JAMES MADISON DISTINGUISHED
    PROFESSOR OF LAW; CLASS OF 1941 RESEARCH PROFESSOR OF LAW, THE
       UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF LAW, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA

        Professor Harrison. Thank you, Senator Schmitt, Senator
    Cornyn. The Committee has asked me to discuss Congress' power
    to regulate the process by which the President's signature is
    affixed to a document other than a bimanual signature, that is
    to say the use of an autopen or similar technology. I have four
    points to make.
        The first is that the Constitution and the laws generally,
    when they require that the President act by signing a document,
    do not require that the President manually sign the document.
    The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel wrote an
    opinion on that subject in 2005, which is quite extensive, and
    I find it persuasive.
        The concept of signature is signing a document is more
    general than--like a lot of concepts, more general than its
    central application. The central application is manual
    signature, but that is not the only way by which someone can
    sign a document. Someone can also sign a document by indicating
    that the person signing the document has decided that that
    person's signature should be affixed to the document by some
    process other than manual signature.
        The second point is that as a general matter, Congress has
    power to carry into execution the constitutional powers of the
    other branches of Government. The last power that is conferred
    on Congress by Article I, Section 8, is the end of what is
    called the Necessary and Proper Clause, and it provides that
    Congress shall have power--I will read the whole clause--``to
    make all laws which will be necessary and proper for carrying
    into execution the foregoing powers,'' that is Congress' other
    powers there, in Article I, Section 8, ``and all other powers
    vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United
    States or in any department or officer thereof.''
        That's the last part. That's the part that is relevant
    here. It is sometimes called the Horizontal Necessary and
    Proper Clause because it operates horizontally among the three
    co-equal branches. Congress is the legislature. There are times
    when one of the other constitutional powers can use support
    that can be given only by the force of law, and that is
    something that Congress can do with the Horizontal Necessary
    and Proper Power.
        The next thing I'll say is there are some principles, I
    think, that should govern exercises of the Horizontal Necessary
    and Proper Power. The first is that it operate to support, to
    assist, to make--cause to function better the power that is
    being carried into execution, be it that of the President or
    that of the Federal courts.
        The second is that, in supporting the other powers,
    Congress not seek to exercise powers that are vested elsewhere,
    like the power to decide cases, like the President's power of
    pardon.
        And third, when Congress exercises that power, it should
    make sure not to put substantial burdens on the exercise of the
    other powers that it is seeking to support, powers that, once
    again, are vested elsewhere than Congress--than in Congress or
    by the Constitution.
        I think Congress can regularize the process by which the
    President's signature is affixed without his manual signature
    in a way that would be consistent with Congress' Horizontal
    Necessary and Proper Power. In particular, Congress can require
    that when the President indicates that his signature is to be
    affixed to a document without manual signature, that that
    decision by the President be documented and the--some
    individual record that the President has made that decision and
    that be made part of the public record, say, by being published
    in the Federal Register or the Weekly Compilation of
    Presidential Documents.
        A statute like that would carry the President's power into
    execution because making sure that the President really has
    made a decision and that it wasn't made by someone else with
    the President's--someone else with the President's autopen is a
    way to make sure that the power is properly exercised, that is,
    by the President. As long as a statute like that is completely
    neutral, applies the same way to all Presidential decisions, it
    shouldn't raise any problem of Congress trying to control the
    President's authority. Again, constitutional power is vested in
    the other branches and supported by Congress under the
    Horizontal Necessary and Proper Power.
        And third, a requirement of documentation. Well, the White
    House does a lot of documents. The requirement of documentation
    would not place a substantial additional burden on the
    President and the processes by which the President acts. And I
    would suggest that if the Committee consider legislation along
    these lines, that it inquire into the paper flow process
    currently used in the White House so that any statute Congress
    enacts will make that process work better rather than burdening
    it, making it not work as well.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Professor Harrison appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Senator Schmitt. Thank you. Mr. Wold.

        STATEMENT OF THEODORE WOLD, VISITING FELLOW FOR LAW AND
         TECHNOLOGY POLICY, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION, BOISE, ID

        Mr. Wold. Senator Cornyn, Senator Schmitt, Members of the
    Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify this
    morning about how the coverup of President Biden's mental
    decline endangered America's national security and undermined
    the Constitution.
        The U.S. Constitution vests Executive power in a single
    person, the President. At the founding, the President exercised
    the Executive power through only a small group of trusted
    advisors and personnel. In fact, President Washington had a
    four-member cabinet. Today, the President directs a Leviathan
    executive branch with 15 cabinet departments and at least four
    million full-time executive branch employees.
        The executive branch proliferation has a single source of
    democratic legitimacy, that by order of U.S. Constitution's
    Article II, the President is both elected by the American
    people and vested with the Executive power, all of it.
        Traditionally, the President takes positive actions and
    authenticates those actions through his signature. His
    signature is required for the most significant actions he may
    undertake, to sign an Executive Order, to take any action
    invested in him by the Constitution, as in granting a pardon,
    and to take the most important action of all, to sign a bill
    into law. In all these cases, the President's signature is
    itself the protection of democratic principle. When the
    President signs, he communicates his assent and endorsement of
    the action he takes.
        The autopen is a device that signs the President's
    signature to a document. The Oversight Project, of which I am a
    board member, has discovered that the Biden White House
    deployed an autopen to affix President Biden's signature to
    pardons, prison commutations, Executive Orders, and
    Presidential proclamations. The Oversight Project's research
    has found that the Biden White House first deployed the autopen
    to affix President Biden's signature to a proclamation on day 5
    of his administration, and that there were at least three
    different autopen signatures in use throughout President
    Biden's tenure in the White House.
        In June 2022, the Biden White House began deploying the
    autopen to sign clemency warrants and Executive Orders. Autopen
    use skyrocketed from there. We found that of the 51 clemency
    warrants issued during the Biden Presidency, over half, 32 in
    total, were signed with an autopen. And these include some of
    the most controversial acts of clemency of the Biden
    Presidency, including death row commutations and the preemptive
    pardons of members of the Biden family, Dr. Anthony Fauci,
    General Mark Milley, and more that were issued in the final
    days of the Biden Presidency.
        We reviewed President Biden's schedule and his publicly
    available media and were unable to find any record of President
    Biden's personally approving these actions, such as a statement
    issued by the President himself to reporters. In addition, we
    found that the Biden White House used the autopen to affix
    President Biden's signature to clemency warrants and Executive
    Orders while the President himself was in Washington, DC, for
    at least some of that day, and thus was presumably available to
    sign important executive actions. Finally, we found multiple
    days where President Biden wet-signed a bill into law, but used
    an autopen to issue an Executive Order or for other important
    executive actions.
        The Biden White House's widespread use of an autopen to
    affix President Biden's signatures to documents that exercise
    Executive powers belonging solely to the President poses
    significant constitutional, legal, and practical
    considerations. Once the President's signature is copied and
    loaded into the autopen, the machine can sign documents as the
    President himself would. To be blunt, by using the autopen,
    anyone can sign documents as the President himself.
        Now, to be clear, I'm not here today to suggest that the
    autopen is bad. It's just technology. I'm here today because of
    questions concerning President Biden's capacity and whether the
    autopen was used to usurp Presidential power or to conceal the
    President's decline.
        As the sitting President's mental acuity declined,
    potentially to the point of incapacitation, his
    administration's expansion of the powers of the Presidency
    raises more questions than answers. Any investigation into this
    matter should focus not only on whether President Biden
    directed or authorized subordinate staff to take action in
    certain instances but whether he had the capacity to do so at
    all.
        The 25th Amendment lays out clear procedures for what to do
    when the President is incapacitated. It was carefully drafted
    and informed by our Nation's history. The Biden administration
    ignored it all to aggrandize Executive power and push the
    country further in their preferred ideological direction.
        It is our obligation at this point at--to get to the bottom
    of these issues and to ask the important question as to whether
    or not the autopen and other devices were used to cover and
    obscure President Biden's mental decline, undermining our
    national security and also the Constitution.
        Thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Wold appears as a submission
    for the record.]
        Senator Schmitt. Right on time, pretty impressive. Thank
    you. Mr. Spicer.

     STATEMENT OF SEAN SPICER, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY,
               HOST, THE SEAN SPICER SHOW, ALEXANDRIA, VA

        Mr. Spicer. Chairmen Schmitt and Cornyn, Members of the
    Committee, thank you for having me. I was asked to share my
    experience as a senior White House staffer with respect to the
    interactions that I and other senior staff had with President
    Trump during his first term.
        During my tenure as press secretary, I interacted with the
    President multiple times every day. Most days, I would talk to
    him by phone or in person early in the morning and then
    multiple times throughout the day, including weekends. For the
    most senior positions in the White House, those designated by
    the rank of assistant to the President, which includes the
    White House chief of staff, the White House counsel, and the
    press secretary, it is critical to have regular interaction
    with the President.
        The position of press secretary especially demands this
    type of consistent and intentional communication. I or any
    other press secretary, regardless of administration, could not
    do the job effectively without regular communication with the
    President. It was my responsibility to have the most up-to-date
    understanding of President Trump's position on policy,
    personnel, and everything in between.
        Admittedly, I made a couple of rather high-profile mistakes
    during my tenure. You may have read some of them. But in all
    cases, those mistakes occurred when I wasn't connected with the
    President's thinking or position on a particular issue or
    policy. Coordinating and collaborating among even the most
    senior staff cannot replace direct communication with the
    President himself.
        In my position, I was very well acquainted with the
    President's work, his day-to-day responsibilities, and his
    fitness for office. I watched him serve with the strength and
    endurance of a man half his age. As you can see on almost a
    daily basis through events, statements, and social media posts,
    he is up early and ends his days very late.
        Yet in several instances during his first term, the media
    questioned his fitness for office. Guests and so-called
    experts, like Sanjay Gupta at CNN, were called upon to
    speculate on the result of Trump's physical and mental well-
    being. The Washington Post ran hit pieces with headlines like,
    ``The White House struggles to silence talk of Trump's mental
    fitness.'' Vox wrote, ``Is Trump mentally unfit to be
    President?'' NBC ran a story by the Associated Press that
    raised mental health concerns regarding the President. CNN's
    Brian Stelter questioned if members of the news media were
    ``tiptoeing around obvious questions about President Trump's
    instability.'' These headlines were not isolated instances.
    Most major news outlets ran with these ridiculous type of
    propaganda pieces. To use one of the media's favorite terms,
    these inquiries were without evidence.
        That brings us to the juxtaposition of how the very same
    media covered the Biden administration. To be blunt, the legacy
    media failed the American people. They failed to do their job.
    Many, rightly so, believe the media in this country is culpable
    in covering up the obvious decline of the 46th President of the
    United States. The scrutiny that was baselessly directed at
    President Trump during his first term was wholly absent from
    the media coverage of the Biden White House. The media lacked
    any sense of curiosity that would naturally stem from what the
    public could see with their own eyes.
        Even in the face of deeply concerning and public signs of
    President Biden's mental and physical decline, legacy media
    outlets were silent. Biden and his senior aides flatly
    dismissed the need for a cognitive test during his tenure, as
    had been requested of President Trump. Yet no protest was heard
    from the voices that were so critical of Trump. With the
    exception of a couple White House reporters, like Fox News
    Channel's Peter Doocy, reporters generally refused to breach
    the subject at White House briefings.
        News outlets weren't the only ones complicit in covering up
    Biden's decline. Presidential staff would have or should have
    been interacting with Biden on a daily basis. At best, his
    administration was grossly negligent. At worst, Biden's staff
    actively concealed his fitness for office.
        When White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said
    President Biden could run circles on her, there were only two
    possible conclusions, that she herself was in poor health and
    in need of medical assistance or that she was lying. There is
    no question that a vast difference between how President Trump
    interacted with his staff and how President Biden did.
        When one--whether one supports President Trump or not, he
    is clearly the most accessible and transparent President in
    modern history, and there is no question who is running this
    country. The same cannot be true--said of President Biden.
        It is the President who is elected by the American people.
    The role of staff is to execute his agenda and policies. I
    thank the Committee for holding this hearing so that, going
    forward, the American people can have the confidence in who is
    running the country and making critical decisions. The American
    people deserve no less.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Spicer appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Senator Schmitt. Thank you for those opening statements.
    The minority did not call any witnesses for today's hearing.
    They have chosen to ignore the hearing, as they chose to ignore
    President Biden's mental decline, but we do have a short video
    of some previous statements from Biden administration officials
    and Democratic Party officials telling us not to believe our
    lying eyes.
        You can play the video.
        [Video is shown.]
        Senator Schmitt. Okay. Professor Harrison, I do want to ask
    you a couple questions. I just wanted you to presume for a
    moment that a pardon was issued under President Biden's autopen
    signature but issued without his direction. It comes to light
    that he actually didn't direct it. A member of his staff used
    the autopen for a pardon. What recourse is available under
    those circumstances?
        Professor Harrison. Senator, I think there would be two
    questions. The first has to do with whether--and I don't--I
    can't answer it other than to identify the question, which is
    to say sometimes documents that are properly authenticated are
    treated as having been validly issued even when they're not.
    That can happen. There are legal rules that produce that
    result. And I don't think there is such a rule about a pardon,
    but I would have to inquire into that, again, because there are
    such rules.
        The other thing I'd say is that for a pardon particularly,
    the only situation I can think of that clearly would bring into
    question whether the pardon was valid, which was the first
    question, was if the Government sought to prosecute someone and
    the person reportedly received the pardon, offered the pardon
    as a defense, then the Government might say that, no, the
    pardon was invalid and therefore you weren't pardoned. You're
    still subject to prosecution. There might be some other way for
    a question like that about a pardon to come up. I can't think
    of another, but that is the one I can think of.
        Senator Schmitt. So from your perspective, let's just say
    that if there isn't any other legal recourse other than the one
    that you sort of brought up, what advice would you give to this
    Committee or this Congress or this Senate to address that? What
    remedies could the legislative branch enact?
        Professor Harrison. It's hard to think of anything Congress
    can do ex post. That's why I do think that it would be
    advisable ex ante to improve the process of authentication and
    make it more clear that documents that are signed by autopen
    really do reflect a decision by the President. That done in
    advance will make whatever the authentication system is more
    reliable.
        Senator Schmitt. Mr. Wold, given sort of the role that you
    played in trying to provide more transparency of what happened
    during the 4-years under Joe Biden, who was running the country
    under Joe Biden? Let's just take the last 2 years.
        Mr. Wold. It's a great question, Senator. And at some
    level, I am not the right witness for this hearing. I mean,
    there should be members of the media here, maybe some of your
    Senate colleagues who had known the President over the years
    and obviously had close proximity during the time of his
    administration and obviously his staff.
        I think, you know, sort of aligned with your previous
    question, there is a real consideration here on authentication.
    And in my time in the first Trump White House, there was an
    exhaustive process to determine how paper flowed into the Oval
    and when the President had given his assent to a certain
    action. That was through, in fact, two different policy
    channels, the staff secretary, and then there was also an
    office, essentially a policy management guiding the flow of
    documentation.
        If the Biden administration staffers and personnel wanted
    to put this to bed, they could very easily dispel all of this
    by saying, here are the documents that show the President
    assented to these actions. The Trump administration would have
    that. Previous administrations would have that. And if that's
    not there, then there is cause to improve the way that
    executive branch employees authenticate actions undertaken by
    the President.
        Senator Schmitt. Yes, I mean, the President actually
    performing the functions of President is kind of an important
    thing in our constitutional order. You had, kings used to affix
    their seal to show that this was an official declaration from
    the sovereign in this country, the sovereign or the people.
    They delegate, you know, the authority to their elected
    representatives.
        And as you mentioned in your opening statement, there is
    only one person elected by everybody. So that signature--this
    is not just a small point. That signature issuing a pardon for
    someone who'd been convicted of a crime or in the case of Joe
    Biden, these preemptive pardons, which are sort of
    unprecedented, is a big deal. And I think that is part of the
    reason why we are here today.
        Mr. Spicer, I wanted to ask you, you alluded to this, but
    the media is so desperate to make sure President Trump never
    got back into office. Of course, you saw the lawfare that took
    place, but then of course this narrative that Joe Biden was
    fine, don't believe your lying eyes and told that they couldn't
    deny it anymore based on the debate. Could you just kind of
    compare that to your experience when you were, you know, press
    secretary for President Trump to sort of the inquiries that
    were made daily about his mental acuity versus the inability to
    do that during the 4-years under Joe Biden?
        Mr. Spicer. Well, Senator, in many cases, there was no
    inquiry. They would just run with a story, having guests on
    that would question his physical or mental acuity, speculate on
    it, bring guests on that would speculate it. We would often
    then push back on those kinds of stories.
        That is in vast contrast to the lack of any kind of
    curiosity that existed throughout the 4-years of President
    Biden. And I think the difference was they would seize on the
    simplest thing with President Trump, whereas in President
    Biden's case, there was multiple issues of physical, mental
    confusion, him going in the wrong direction, him falling down,
    him misunderstanding an event or not being able to finish a
    sentence. That was never the case with President Trump. They
    were almost manufacturing instances in his case without
    actually trying to get to the bottom of a story or inquire
    within the press office to get our response. They would go with
    the story, then we would push back.
        With Biden, my understanding from the conversations that I
    would have with the media is they would never ask. They just
    literally were basically afraid to go there.
        Senator Schmitt. Senator Cornyn.
        Senator Cornyn. Professor Harrison, it strikes me when
    talking about the autopen, there are really two issues. One is
    the mechanical use of an autopen in lieu of an actual signature
    by the President. But it seems to me that we are confronted
    with more important or more fundamental issues is did the
    President know that the autopen was being used for that
    purpose?
        And so one would be--if somebody stole the autopen and was
    signing pardons on behalf of the President, but what we are
    confronted with here is really the capacity of the President of
    the United States to understand what he was supposed to be
    doing.
        And just thinking about other areas of the law where
    capacity is important, and whenever it comes to people writing
    a will, let's say, for example, disposing of their property to
    their children and grandchildren, occasionally, there arises
    the issue of testamentary capacity by the person disposing of
    their property. And generally speaking, to have testamentary
    capacity, that person must understand they are signing a will,
    they comprehend the nature and the extent of their property,
    they recognize their relationships with potential
    beneficiaries, and understand how the will disposes of their
    assets. So why can't we have a similar inquiry into the
    executive capacity, let's say, of the President of the United
    States to actually know what he or she is doing?
        Professor Harrison. Senator, you're absolutely right that
    that question, whether the President or somebody else who holds
    official power has the legal capacity to exercise it, is
    distinct from authentication of documents. Authentication of
    documents is important, but capacity is another question.
        With respect specifically to the President, I think the
    answer there is--and this may be ``out of the frying pan into
    the fire'' kind of answer. The answer there is Article II and
    then the 25th Amendment deal with the situation in which the
    President is unable to exercise his powers and duties. And I
    think it's a reasonable inference, although the Constitution
    doesn't come out and say this, that a President who is not
    determined to be unable through now what's the 25th Amendment
    process for making that determination, there's no process in
    Article II itself, the 25th Amendment, added something. A
    President who has not been, pursuant to the 25th Amendment,
    determined not to be able to exercise the powers and duties of
    the President is presumed to have capacity to do that.
        I say that not on the basis of any sort of, other than
    practice, that's the way it's been for a couple of hundred
    years, but I think that is a reasonable inference from the fact
    that the Constitution does make a provision about what happens
    when the President is unable and the 25th Amendment then
    provides a process to determine by which the President is
    unable.
        Senator Cornyn. Mr. Wold, following up on Professor
    Harrison's answer, the 25th Amendment requires actions by the
    Vice President and a majority of the cabinet to declare the
    President incapacitated, incapable of carrying out his or her
    duties, but there doesn't appear to be any accountability or
    any remedy when they fail to act as they did in this case. Some
    have suggested that there may be potential crimes committed by
    members of the cabinet for failing to act, basically suborning
    perjury, forging Government documents, impersonating a Federal
    officer, making false statements, conspiracy to defraud the
    United States, obstruction of justice, wire or mail fraud.
    Those are all statutes, criminal statutes that are on the
    books.
        Do you think there is any application of any of those
    criminal statutes to the circumstances of the Biden Presidency
    and his incapacity and the failure of those persons, only
    persons authorized to question that incapacity under the 25th
    Amendment, the failure on their part to act?
        Mr. Wold. Senator, there very well could be. I mean,
    obviously, that would be a question for a prosecutor to take up
    in their discretion.
        I will say the 25th Amendment, it's a modern contrivance,
    but it still is consistent with American constitutional
    tradition, which it assumes that officers of the United States
    will act virtuously and morally. And the idea that members of
    the cabinet would go to the length of avoiding the Oval Office
    so as to abdicate their responsibility to verify the
    appropriateness of the President's acuity or the ability to
    authenticate actions taken by the President, if that's not a
    constitutional scandal, I mean, honestly, I don't know what
    would constitute such.
        So yes, I mean, I think there could be the potential for
    crimes, but moreover, the 25th Amendment can only function in
    its procedural mechanisms if people are actually willing to
    call a spade a spade.
        Senator Schmitt. Senator Britt.
        Senator Britt. Thank you, and I really appreciate Senator
    Cornyn, Senator Schmitt calling this hearing. This is
    incredibly important. I mean, you look at what the
    administration did, you look at what the Democratic Party did,
    you look at what the legacy media did. It is absolutely
    inexcusable. It is not only dangerous, it is disgusting. And
    the American people deserve better.
        And the fact that we have none of my Democratic colleagues
    over here, that this entire dais is empty, that what they
    allowed to happen, that they are not interested in correcting
    it for the future is absolutely mind-blowing.
        And so when we are looking at what Joe Biden did while he
    was in office, you have a disastrous withdrawal from
    Afghanistan. I mean, leaving equipment, leaving allies,
    changing the way the world viewed us. You look at an emboldened
    Russia, Iran. You look at what happened, obviously, with China
    and those conversations with Joe Biden. You look at millions
    flooding across our border. You look at a ton of unaccompanied
    children coming across, hundreds of thousands. You look at
    hundreds of thousands of Americans dead because of fentanyl
    poisoning. You look at record high inflation. Who was in
    charge? And the fact that not one Democrat colleague can show
    up and try to get answers to that, I hope the American people
    see that for exactly what it is.
        And so my question to you is, how do we prevent this in the
    future?
        So we know that the 25th Amendment in the 1960's, we take a
    look at that. Section 4 was purposefully vague to allow for
    some flexibility. Clearly, it either didn't work, or we have
    some people we need to hold accountable for not stepping up.
        So I want to know from you all, what do we need to do? Do
    you think that there need to be more guardrails when it comes
    to Section 4? Do you think that we need some more standards to
    evaluate that? And if so, what should those standards be? And
    Professor Harrison, I would like to start with you.
        Professor Harrison. Senator, this is the question about
    further implementation of the Section 4 is one that has not
    received a lot of attention because, fortunately, the country
    has not needed it very often. I think that this is a situation
    in which Congress' power is pretty limited because the
    Constitution by design put a somewhat vague but nevertheless
    meaningful concept----
        Senator Britt. Well, I think it----
        Professor Harrison [continuing]. Which is ability on the
    part of the President to act----
        Senator Britt. Right, and it also means good faith.
        Professor Harrison [continuing]. In the hands of political
    process. That's the lesson I'll say.
        Senator Britt. Yes, and good faith.
        Professor Harrison. Yes.
        Senator Britt. And I don't think----
        Professor Harrison. Yes.
        Senator Britt. Obviously, we don't have that here.
        Mr. Wold, do you have any opinion on that?
        Mr. Wold. Yes, Senator. So you said, should we hold folks
    accountable, and should there be some reforms?
        Senator Britt. Yes.
        Mr. Wold. The answer would be both----
        Senator Britt. Right.
        Mr. Wold [continuing]. Yes, to--so, you know, your
    colleague on the Democrat side who did attend, Senator Welch
    said, hey, this is just kind of retrospective. We need to move
    on. I would strenuously disagree with that. There's--the only
    ability to move forward is if there's an accounting of what was
    undertaken under the Biden staff, the Biden personnel, the
    bureaucrats, and the cabinet.
        And one thing I'll just say is this very issue was debated
    by Republicans in 1988 in the Miller Commission Report at the
    University of Virginia. Republicans had the--you know, the open
    and honest, transparent discussion about the end of the Reagan
    Presidency and whether or not there were other guardrails that
    needed to be imposed on the 25th Amendment. Some discussions
    were about the inclusion of a mental health professional on the
    White House medical team, whether the surgeon general should
    oversee the inclusion of medical reporting as part of Section
    4, Clause 4 of the 25th Amendment.
        All I'll say is all of those things have been set aside.
    There has been no legitimate discussion in the years since
    about how to make the 25th Amendment more robust and how it
    could actually operate in the instance that the President
    lacked capacity.
        Senator Britt. Right, and do we need to more clearly define
    what ``unable'' means in the 25th Amendment?
        Mr. Wold. Oh, I think most certainly, and I think there
    should be--look, you know, the other issue, and a number of
    legal academics, you know, former colleagues of Professor
    Harrison, have taken this up over the years. I mean, Professor
    Calabresi wrote about this 20 years ago, that there needs to be
    a more precise definition. And there are lots of issues related
    to succession.
        Senator Britt. Well, there clearly does because, I mean,
    even from all of us from the outside, we are saying there is a
    problem. And the fact that we could get no one on the inside to
    actually take a look at what they already knew to exist and
    then be able to hold them accountable, we have to have other
    guardrails moving forward, and that is absolute. So we need to
    be talking today about what those guardrails are.
        I have a question. I am running out of time. It is two
    things. One, senior staff. So I have been a senior staff
    member. You take an oath when you get to come and work in this
    body. You know, you want to make sure you are doing what is
    best for the United States of America, for the State you serve,
    all of the things. Is there any way to hold senior staff
    accountable for either helping to cover up and/or moving people
    to the side? Because it is clear that there are people within
    this administration that saw that, and they should be sitting
    in front of us today, answering the question of why they turned
    their back on America because that is exactly what they did.
    And so whether it is secretaries, whether it is people in the
    administration, or whether it is senior staff, we deserve some
    accountability and we deserve some answers.
        And then my last question will be for Mr. Spicer. Legacy
    media, how in the world do we hold them accountable? If all of
    us on the outside can see it, and we are saying get to the
    bottom of this, but yet they refuse, what mechanism should we
    put in place to be able to hold them accountable for not
    actually following what is clearly in front of them?
        Mr. Spicer. Senator, you're asking the right question. When
    it comes to accountability, it can't be overstated. When the
    Biden White House stripped 440 White House hard passes from
    independent journalism--journalists, they were attempting to
    control the narrative, to make sure that no one who wanted to
    hold them accountable was silenced.
        Part of what I think this administration has done so well
    is bringing in new voices, people from disparate backgrounds of
    all sorts to ask the White House Press Secretary, to ask the
    senior staff, and to be able to hold them accountable. Part of
    it is allowing other voices in the media. We've seen what the
    legacy media did, but that's why I think the growth of
    independent media is so healthy for our democracy, and we need
    more of it, not less.
        Senator Britt. Thank you, and then the senior staff
    question, please.
        Mr. Wold. Yes, look, Senator, I mean, senior staff from the
    first Trump administration were brought in before Committees
    and investigated for their participation in drafting the
    President's remarks on January 6, for drafting a speech. So if
    there was an effort by senior staff, the politburo, as they
    seem to like to have called themselves, if they were purposely
    distancing cabinet members, evading difficult Q&A with press,
    all as an attempt to conceal the President's mental acuity,
    yes, they should be held accountable.
        Senator Britt. Thank you.
        Senator Schmitt. Thank you. Senator Moody.
        Senator Moody. Thank you, Senator Cornyn, Senator Schmitt.
    I appreciate you holding this important hearing. And certainly,
    I appreciated my colleague, Senator Britt's remarks in listing
    out so many of the failures of the last administration as they
    played out. I think Americans, yes, sat horrified as they
    watched these events unfold, but at the core of those failures
    were bad policy decisions.
        And the truth is, you know, people talk a lot about the end
    of the Biden administration and his debate performance, but
    those of us that were involved of the repercussion and the
    consequences of some really bad, irresponsible, reckless, I
    would say dangerous policies, and were involved from day one of
    the Biden administration, we started questioning immediately
    who was making these decisions because they were so disastrous
    for the security of this Nation and the safety of our people.
    So I would say from day one of the Presidency through all 4
    years, this was a legitimate question. And every single failure
    that Senator Britt listed was the consequence of a policy
    decision.
        When I was the Florida Attorney General, one of the very
    first executive actions that came out undid both Republican and
    Democrat Presidential precedence of saying, if someone is here
    in our country and they are here illegally, and they are
    committing serious felonies, we are deporting them. And actual
    priorities were that those were the ones they went after first.
    And one of the very first actions that came out of that White
    House was they abandoned that, that both Democrats and
    Republican Presidents had enforced and released to all law
    enforcement around the Nation that they were no longer going to
    make that a priority.
        When sheriffs were calling and pleading with us to take
    these people from their jails and not make them release them
    back into the communities, we would try and communicate this,
    but indeed, they were canceling detainers and releasing these
    people into the communities. They were taking people that were
    brought here from other countries, brought here only to
    prosecute because they were a danger to our Nation and our
    people. And instead of deporting them after their prison
    sentences, they were pushing them into the United States.
        And I don't think it should be lost on anyone that just
    yesterday it came out. You know how many the Trump
    administration pushed into our interior in the last 4 months?
    Zero. And I want you to compare that to a month of the Biden
    administration where hundreds of thousands of people barely
    vetted, if vetted, were forced into our Nation's interior.
        And you have seen these consequences play out. It is not
    just rape victims, murder victims, robbery victims. We have
    caught people here from foreign nations that are on the
    terrorist watchlist that can cause some of our Nation's biggest
    tragedies and devastation. That is the undermining of what a
    Commander-in-Chief is supposed to do in those policies. We saw
    it day one, and that is just one example. And it played out for
    4 years.
        So I think one of the reasons that you see not one Democrat
    in this hearing room right now asking these questions is
    because how do you defend the indefensible? What are they going
    to say? I mean, there has never been a more reckless, negligent
    administration that I can remember in my lifetime. And as
    Attorney General, as the wife of a law enforcement officer, as
    a Federal prosecutor, as a judge, I sat horrified that that was
    the person that was in charge of our safety, our Commander-in-
    Chief, in charge of our borders.
        And I know, Mr. Wold, you have talked about the danger in
    executive actions being pushed out when somebody is not in
    charge that understands how it is affecting the safety of this
    Nation. I am sure based on your prior experience and some of
    the things that you saw being pushed out, I often thought, this
    is a radical aide's dream. You have a Commander-in-Chief
    probably not able to pay attention, and they are pushing out
    policies left and right. Tell me in your experience if you
    noticed anything where that could be the case coming out of
    that administration.
        Mr. Wold. Yes, thank you, Senator. I mean, I think on the
    immigration score itself, so many of those sort of special
    powers exercised by President Biden on parole, on temporary
    protected status, they require the President to do those in his
    own name, correct? It's a case-by-case evaluation performed by
    the Chief Executive. And so I think in reviewing some of those,
    when I was sitting on the sidelines, the question I had was,
    well, what does the paper process look like for that? How did
    DHS work that up? How did it go through the staff secretary's
    office? And what was the President briefed on as far as the
    policy considerations tied to some of these decisions to bring
    in violent criminals from Haiti or Nicaragua into the interior
    of the United States?
        Senator Moody. And did it concern you when you learned, and
    we are now uncovering, that cabinet officials were kept from
    meeting with the President for months at a time?
        Mr. Wold. Look, I mean, if you go back through our history,
    Senator, so Grover Cleveland, Wilson, FDR, JFK, President
    Johnson, President Biden, it's almost a Democrat sport to keep
    from the American people the health and acuity of the Chief
    Executive. They've been doing this for a long time. But this is
    of another level, especially as Mr. Spicer was mentioning, the
    complicity of the national media in obscuring this, but also
    that cabinet officers would go to the lengths of avoiding
    interacting with the Chief Executive because they were fearful
    that they would have to speak to his diminished capacity.
        Senator Moody. And I am running out of time, and it was of
    particular concern that the media seemed to never ask him about
    executive actions and policy. Favorite flavor of ice cream,
    yes. Why he was pushing dangerous criminals into the interior
    of this Nation, no. And that is why I think this hearing was so
    very important. What was coming out of this administration was
    a radical wish list. And certainly you can see what has
    happened to the consequences playing out right now. And now I
    think we are all seeing why.
        Senator Schmitt. Thank you. Senator Blackburn.
        Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And I am so pleased to join my colleague from Florida in
    saying it is time that we have this hearing. All across
    Tennessee, I hear from people every single week that say, what
    was really going on in the White House, and why would no one
    say anything when, with your very own eyes, you could look at
    any of the footage and see what was transpiring with President
    Biden. And I think the fact that many of his own cabinet
    members knew that he was not fit to serve and that there was a
    cabal behind the curtain who was making all the decisions, it
    is so offensive to the American people.
        And it is not something that is a partisan issue. As I
    talked with the Democrats, many of them have lost faith in what
    they thought was going to be a very moderate Joe Biden
    administration. And it turned into be the far-left Bernie
    Sanders version of the Democrat Party that was using the
    autopen and making decisions and committing our great Nation to
    policies that the American people did not support and would
    never have supported.
        And I fully believe that because of that overreach and that
    flippant attitude that much of his staff had toward the
    policies of this Nation to people in the administration that
    chuckled about tossing gold bars off the Titanic. They knew
    they were going down. They knew they were going to be found
    out. And they probably knew at some point there would be a
    hearing like today and the other side of the dais would be
    completely empty because no one can defend what they did.
        Mr. Wold, I want to come to you for a moment and talk about
    something that was really a disturbing revelation from the
    Tapper-Thompson book. And you know, this is part of the thing.
    Now we are finding out the media was all a part of the joke.
    They were part of the ruse. They were part of the fraud that
    was pushed forward. A Biden staffer told the authors that Biden
    just had to win, and then he could disappear for 4 years. That
    is all they needed to do. And you know, it is, the following
    statement was, he would only have to show proof of life every
    once in a while.
        And as I had a Tennessean say to me when they had actually
    downloaded this book and read it, and then they said, you know,
    how stupid do they think we are? And the disrespect this
    administration showed to the American people. Why is it that
    the American people appreciate that President Trump goes out
    nearly every day is taking questions and answering questions is
    because they have now found out that these staffers were
    willing to do undemocratic things, using their term to keep the
    President in office, to keep Biden there. They were willing to
    do undemocratic things, unlawful things.
        So Mr. Wold, let's talk about that behavior and how that
    undermines the faith of Tennesseans and all Americans in our
    public institutions because they could see what was happening,
    but they were being lied to, lied to by people in the White
    House who were probably then running in their office and
    saying, well, we pulled it off another day.
        Mr. Wold. Yes, Senator, I mean, this is a theme you've
    talked about for many years, which is the executive branch is
    enormous. I mean, there are close to 1,000 employees in the
    executive office of the President. There are nearly 4 million
    full-time Federal employees throughout the 14 departments that
    the President oversees.
        Executive power, as accountable to the people of this
    country, really manifests in two ways: the power of the
    President to remove bureaucrats and to fire them and to affix
    his signature to official actions that he undertakes. So when
    our--you know, the Washington establishment says something to
    the effect of, well, democracy dies in darkness, yes, it does,
    when there are staffers, the media, cabinet officials, senior
    advisors to the President who all create a covering sort of a
    shroud of darkness that obscures who is actually making the
    decisions.
        And one other thing I'll just say very quickly, a number of
    your colleagues on the Democrat side have said, well, there is
    an OLC opinion here. We don't need to talk anymore. There is an
    OLC opinion. It says you can use the autopen. That opening--the
    opening paragraph of that OLC opinion says you can use the
    autopen but only when the President directs that you do so
    under his decisionmaking power, right? It is very clear again
    and again that the President actually has to make the decision.
    That cannot be delegated to a staffer or an advisor. And
    there's no indication here that anyone other than staff were
    making these decisions.
        Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Schmitt. Thank you. Senator Hawley.
        Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to all the
    witnesses for being here.
        You know, the visual, sometimes it really is true. A
    picture speaks louder than words. It is worth a thousand words.
    And here, all you have to do is look over at this side of the
    dais to see that the stone wall continues. I mean, from the
    party that lied to this Nation for 4 years, let's just take a
    look at some of the things that our colleagues said on the
    Democrat side when their own Justice Department was concluding
    that Joe Biden, who let's not forget, illegally took classified
    documents, illegally took classified documents and kept them in
    his garage, in his freezer, I mean, Lord knows where. He
    certainly didn't know. Their own Justice Department interviewed
    the guy and concluded he could not form the requisite mental
    state to stand trial. He did not have the mental ability to
    stand trial.
        [Poster is displayed.]
        And what did our Democrat colleagues say? Vice President
    Harris says, oh, no, no. The way that the Hur report
    characterized the President is so wrong. The President's
    demeanor is totally fine. Senator Smith, what the Hur said
    about the President not remembering his son's death, so unfair.
    Senator Kaine said this is grandstanding. Senator Fetterman
    said it is just cheap shots. You had other Senators saying--
    Senator Ossoff in February 2024--2024--saying, ``I found the
    President to be sharp, focused, impressive, formidable, and
    effective.'' In June 2024, Congressman Jeffries insist Biden
    was ``incredibly strong, forceful, and decisive.''
        Where are they now? They don't want to answer for any of
    those quotes now. They lied to us for 4 years, and we know they
    lied. They know they lied. It is why they are not here. They
    don't want to answer a single question. They can't bear to show
    their faces in public. And you know what? It is right that they
    can't do that because the bill of goods they sold this country,
    they walked this country right into one of the greatest
    constitutional crises of our history, of our history. And now
    they are afraid to even show up to admit it. These are people
    and this is a party that cannot be trusted with power, that
    cannot be trusted to tell the truth, the most basic truth.
        They all changed their tunes after Joe Biden debated
    President Trump, and the whole world could see he couldn't even
    form a sentence, that running this guy for President again is a
    form of elder abuse. My, how they changed their tunes after
    that. Now they can't even show up in public to talk about it.
    This is embarrassing. But worse than that, it's dangerous. It
    is dangerous for this country.
        Mr. Wold, I want to pick on something you just said a
    second ago about the OLC and their opinion as to when an
    autopen can be used. To be clear about this, autopen means not
    signed by the person. Autopen is basically push of a button and
    it gets signed. OLC says only when the President specifically
    directs it, and it is under his direct authority. Do I
    basically have that right?
        Mr. Wold. That's correct, Senator.
        Senator Hawley. So based on the facts we know, did that
    happen in this case with all of the pardons and clemencies and
    other giveaways that Joe Biden signed?
        Mr. Wold. Assuming that the Biden White House complied with
    sort of traditional practice of Presidential administrations
    and that there was recordkeeping either from the staff
    secretary or others, there should be records to indicate either
    through covering memorandum or briefing books where the
    President would have signed his signature authorizing this
    decision, none of that has come forward. That would be very
    easy to dispel some of these concerns.
        And I think what we're seeing here is really the autopen is
    best understood as a sort of a tool of executive convenience.
        Senator Hawley. Hold on a second. I would just want to--you
    just said something very important. I want to emphasize that.
    So what you are saying is is that there should be--for every
    time that Biden authorized the autopen, there should be a
    record of that, and he should have had to have registered his
    personal consent to using the autopen. Is that basically
    correct?
        Mr. Wold. I think to put it another way, I would say in the
    policy paper flow to the Oval Office, there should be a record
    of what documents are presented to the President when and when
    he gave his assent to the actions that are listed in those
    documents, whether it's a judicial nomination or it's a
    statutory----
        Senator Hawley. Okay.
        Mr. Wold [continuing]. Response to Congress.
        Senator Hawley. Well, I think the answer is we need to get
    those documents. And I just say to our friends in the media
    over here, you guys need to be asking for those documents, and
    we need to be asking for them, Mr. Chairman. We need to see
    those documents. And the President, the former President now
    can certainly choose to release them. I am sure they are part
    of his personal papers. Right, Mr. Wold?
        Mr. Wold. That's correct. And the first place to start
    would be the staff secretary's office under President Biden.
        Senator Hawley. So here is the trail. If you want to know,
    if you want an answer to the question, did Joe Biden actually
    assent to the use of the autopen--and you think of all the
    people he pardoned, he granted clemency to, murderers, drug
    dealers, child rapists. Let's find out, did he actually
    authorize it? There should be a record of it is what we have
    learned today. Thank you for that testimony, Mr. Wold. There
    should be a record of it.
        So this is a binary question. It is not, oh, we don't know.
    Gee, it is hard to say. No, actually we can find out. So I,
    right now, today, I call on President Biden, former President
    Biden and his staff, release the documents. You have them, you
    know you have them, release them. If what you did is legal and
    if you are really not embarrassed about it and you think it was
    totally constitutional, release the paper flow. Show us the
    documents where the President authorized the use of the pen for
    every single pardon and clemency and stay application. Let's
    see it. Let's see all of it.
        And if you won't do it, we should subpoena those documents,
    and we should find out the truth of who was really running the
    White House because I think we can see it was not Joe Biden.
        Thank you all for being here today. Mr. Wold, thanks for
    your testimony.
        Senator Schmitt. Senator Kennedy.
        Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Gentlemen, I want to try to separate policy and politics
    for a second. I know it is hard to do around this place, but I
    thought Senator Cornyn made a very good point in his opening
    remarks. I think Senator Smith made the same point that the
    policy here is very important. And I want to ask you your
    opinion on the policy. Professor, tell me briefly, I know you
    came to talk about autopens, but tell me briefly about the 25th
    Amendment.
        Professor Harrison. Senator, the 25th Amendment provides
    the process by which to implement a principle that's in the
    original constitution, which is when the President is unable to
    exercise power at the powers and duties of the Presidency,
    somebody else exercises them starting with the Vice President.
    And the 25th Amendment sets up a process by which if there's a
    question whether the President is able to do that, the Vice
    President and the heads of the executive departments can
    temporarily basically put the Vice President in as acting
    President, and then Congress ultimately decides the question.
        Senator Kennedy. Well, the standard--is it not, Professor,
    the standard is disability of the President. Is that correct?
        Professor Harrison. Unable to exercise the powers and
    duties.
        Senator Kennedy. Okay.
        Professor Harrison. Yes.
        Senator Kennedy. Here is what I would like your opinion on
    and the opinion of these two gentlemen here. You have all been
    staffers. You have worked in government. You have had a boss.
    In Mr. Spicer's case, his boss was the President of the United
    States. Let's suppose the President--using your experience as a
    staffer. You were working for the President, any President,
    hypothetically, a President. And let's suppose the President
    started talking like he was from outer space. Let's suppose the
    President became fatigued very easily. He couldn't finish a
    sentence without taking a nap. Let's suppose the President, I
    mean, if he was just physically in bad shape, mentally and
    physically. Mentally, he may or may not have--you are not a
    doctor--neurodegenerative disease, but physically, you can
    see--you could bake a Thanksgiving turkey in the time it takes
    him to walk across the stage.
        What is as a member of his staff, what do you think is your
    moral obligation to say, wait a minute, the President can't do
    the job anymore? I know you are loyal folks. You believe in
    your President, this President, whichever President, I am
    speaking hypothetically. You are loyal, you want to be a good
    staffer, but you also have a moral obligation. How do you reach
    that decision, Professor? And I will go to each of you.
        Professor Harrison. Senator, I think the first thing you
    would have to do in a situation like that is exercise your own
    judgment. Is this--how serious is this problem? Because
    everybody has moments when they lose focus. It happens. But if
    somebody thinks this is a really serious problem, I think the
    first thing to do is the most difficult, which is to say to the
    President--because the 25th Amendment also provides that the
    President can say, I am unable to exercise the powers and
    duties of my office.
        Senator Kennedy. And suppose the President says----
        Professor Harrison. That would be extremely difficult, but
    I think it should be done.
        Senator Kennedy [continuing]. Look, trust me, I can. And it
    is clear to you that he has neurodegenerative disease and he
    can't. What do you do? Do you have a moral obligation as a
    staff member to go to the American people and say, we have got
    a problem here, it may cost me my career?
        Professor Harrison. Senator, I think at that point, you
    have an obligation to talk to the Vice President who is in
    charge of the Section 4 process under the 25th Amendment.
        Senator Kennedy. What about you, Mr. Wold? You have a moral
    obligation. I understand you want it to go away, you want to
    work it out within, but you can't. When does a staffer have a
    moral obligation to stand up and say he can't be President
    anymore, or she can't be?
        Mr. Wold. Well, Senator, the 25th Amendment only works if
    individual staffers or officers of the United States exercise
    that kind of moral judgment so----
        Senator Kennedy. That is what I am asking you.
        Mr. Wold. Yes, so, I mean, I think always, as the professor
    said, and the Presidency is an enormous burden, so it would be
    not one instance, it would have to be several instances of a
    failure to exercise judgment.
        Senator Kennedy. How do you make that decision? You are the
    staffer, I get it.
        Mr. Wold. Yes, well, I think it begins with prayer, of
    course, but after that, I think it's conversation with other
    staffers. And if you're unable to confront the President or to
    raise the issue with the Vice President, you should resign.
        Senator Kennedy. What about you, Mr. Spicer? Do you stand
    up and do it and tell the truth and run, or do you have a
    greater obligation to your boss?
        Mr. Spicer. Well, luckily, I didn't have that problem. But
    I would say that you have a moral obligation as an American, as
    a citizen, as a human being. If the leader of the free world
    cannot conduct themselves to make the decisions that are
    critical to this country and to the world, you absolutely have
    a moral obligation to follow the chain of command. And if they
    don't act, then you must.
        Senator Kennedy. Do either of you gentlemen disagree with
    that? Professor?
        Professor Harrison. Senator, I think acting means talking
    to the people who have the responsibility or are in a position
    under the Constitution to do something with the situation.
        Senator Kennedy. You don't agree with Mr. Spicer?
        Professor Harrison. I'm not--Senator, I'm not sure exactly
    what he has in mind, other than talking about the--talking to
    the people who can make the decision.
        Senator Kennedy. Well, I am just trying to ask, you have
    all been staffers. Suppose you go to everybody you are supposed
    to go to, and they all say, my advice to you is to shut up. Do
    you have a moral obligation as a staffer to say, look, this
    person can't be President of the United States. It isn't
    policy. He physically can't do it.
        Mr. Spicer. Senator Kennedy, I'll--it's not a question of
    whether a staffer has that obligation. It's whether you, as an
    American, have that obligation. And I think each and every one
    of us does.
        Senator Kennedy. Yes, but you can see it. An American
    can't. Professor, what do you think?
        Professor Harrison. Senator, I think there are situations
    under which someone in that position should speak publicly, but
    I also think that the views of a single individual who is not
    the person who is constitutionally responsible for taking
    measures should be considered by the public as just the views
    of a certain--of a--of one individual who has some information
    about the subject.
        Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Schmitt. Thank you. Senator Tillis.
        Senator Tillis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Gentlemen, thank you for being here. Actually, the fact
    that this is in the past kind of reminds me of that scene in
    Lion King where Rafiki the mandrill hits Simba on the head and
    said, doesn't matter, it is in the past. You know, I could see
    where my Democrat colleagues would like to use that argument,
    but it mattered.
        And, you know, for me, I met President Biden as Vice
    President Biden when I was sworn in. He literally swore me in
    in 2015. And I have had several interactions with him over the
    years. There is no question that there was a significant
    degradation in his cognitive abilities. Probably the last time
    I spent much time with him was at a NATO summit.
        And I do think there are a lot of legitimate questions to
    be asked about, know, who may have been tending the store, and
    I believe we should get to the bottom of it, but I want to look
    to the future. And back when this discussion was going on, I
    was suggesting--we know what the 25th Amendment does.
    Professor, I am kind of curious about why--and with due respect
    to my colleague from Louisiana, this is a hell of a burden to
    place on a staff. You know, Mr. Spicer, you have been in the
    White House. Can you imagine how heavy that would be and how
    unlikely it would be for you to be successful as an individual
    staff member?
        But Professor Harrison, I am thinking more along the lines
    of what you see in boardrooms all the time about annual
    evaluations of the CEO or board members. What about the concept
    of something short of triggering the 25th Amendment where the
    cabinet members, hand-selected members of the President,
    confirmed by the Senate, maybe on an annual basis, have to have
    an attestation, that based on their work with the President of
    the United States, that he is mentally capable, fit, the same
    way that we have boards make those decisions about board
    directors and CEOs?
        What would be wrong with some sort of a report or
    attestation to Congress from the cabinet members saying this
    man or woman is good to go, and it would be, you know, perjury
    to Congress if they ended up covering up and history proved
    that? What is wrong with something like that as we are looking
    forward?
        Professor Harrison. Senator, I would be--and maybe I am
    sort of being unduly protective of the independence of the
    other two branches, but I----
        Senator Tillis. Well, that is sort of why I want to leave
    it in the--that is why I want to--all I want is the cabinet to
    truthfully attest to the fact that their boss is of sound mind
    and body, and unless they lie, it is not an issue.
        Professor Harrison. Senator, I----
        Senator Tillis. It is an Article II responsibility to
    report to Congress like so many other things. What is wrong
    with that?
        Professor Harrison. I think it would be a very good idea
    for the President to create a process like that. My concern is
    the thought of Congress making such a process mandatory,
    especially in light----
        Senator Tillis. Well, I am trying to figure out the
    consequence because, arguably--I find it hard to believe that
    there were members of the cabinet that didn't go, you know
    what, we love this guy, he appointed us to this position, but
    he is missing a step. And they are refusing to--this is not
    about any one person. This is about 340 million people in this
    country. No one of us should think that we should somehow be
    given a break if we are missing a step. So all I am saying is
    you got to report honestly to Congress that the President of
    the United States, in your opinion, is absolutely demonstrated
    sound mind and body. It is like no other testimony. It would be
    no different than us having them before the Committee and say,
    is the boss okay? And if they lied, they would be perjuring
    themselves. So what is the difference between that and some
    sort of a pro forma report that I would be willing to subject
    the current President to, and then we would have it for all the
    future Presidents? What would be wrong with that?
        Professor Harrison. Senator, again, I think the problem
    there is the Constitution has created a process for that, and
    that's the 25th Amendment. And that suggests that Congress
    can't create another process.
        Now, I do think that the point you're making today is part
    of the political process that might lead Presidents to create a
    system like that on their own, which might enhance the people's
    confidence that they're okay.
        Senator Tillis. I am about to run out of time.
        Mr. Spicer, what do you think?
        Mr. Spicer. Senator, the President normally goes under a
    routine physical every year. In the case of President Biden, it
    was Dr. O'Connor who affirmatively stated his fitness for
    office. The doctor is probably the most competent person to
    attest to the President's fitness for office. The doctor should
    be held accountable for stating in the affirmative that
    President Biden was fit for office.
        Senator Tillis. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Senator Schmitt. Thank you. Senator Cruz.
        Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The Biden administration may go down in history as the most
    brazen constitutional fraud in American history, a Potemkin
    Presidency fronted by a failing puppet with staffers behind the
    scenes pulling the strings.
        This is not political hyperbole. The American people saw it
    with their own eyes during the June 2024 debate. Numerous times
    Biden stood frozen behind the podium, mouth agape, eyes frozen
    and unblinking. When he did speak, his words were confused and
    disjointed. I said that night, this is the most consequential
    Presidential debate in history because it will result in one of
    the two candidates being removed from the ballot. That was
    exactly right.
        And following that debate, the Democrats recognized the
    collapse. They pulled out their knives and took out President
    Biden like Caesar on the Ides of March. For all of their
    strutting about, protesting that they support democracy, not a
    one of them gave a damn about democracy when they pulled Biden
    off the ballot and dropped Kamala Harris in without a single
    Democrat primary voter voting for him. And you know what? Not a
    single Democrat is here today because not a single one of them
    gives a damn about the fact that they lied to the American
    people for 4 years.
        They knew. Every one of them knew that Joe Biden was
    mentally not competent to do the job. The White House press
    secretary, she knew when she stood in front of the American
    people and lied over and over and over again. And they are not
    here because they can't defend themselves.
        It wasn't a surprise. For 4 years, the White House hid
    President Biden from Republican Senators, would not let him
    meet with us. He served 4 years in this body. We all know him.
    And they deliberately lied. And by the way, Jake Tapper had a
    bombshell book exposing the incredible scandal that Biden's
    mental decline was covered up by Jake Tapper. There is a
    Yiddish word, chutzpah. And that truly is chutzpah. How dare we
    lie and cover up what we all knew?
        Now, I have been asked literally a thousand times by
    Texans, who was running the country? And I am going to give you
    the most terrifying answer. I don't know. I genuinely don't
    know. And not a single Democrat here cares.
        The most telling proof of Biden's decline came with the
    signature of the President, the symbol of executive authority
    that was outsourced to a machine.
        Mr. Wold, you are a lawyer who served in the White House
    Counsel's Office. You understand the gravity of Presidential
    action. Does the President's signature carry legal and
    constitutional weight under Article II?
        Mr. Wold. Yes.
        Senator Cruz. Is the act of signing an Executive Order or
    signing a law or granting a pardon a delegable duty of the
    President?
        Mr. Wold. So in that opinion in 2005 from OLC, they said
    essentially that an autopen could be used by a subordinate, but
    the President's determination as to sign the document can never
    be delegated.
        Senator Cruz. Can that authority be transferred to a
    staffer or machine without the President's explicit
    authorization?
        Mr. Wold. Never.
        Senator Cruz. And if you look at the statistics, the
    statistics are stunning. In 2021, President Biden issued 78
    Executive Orders. None were signed with an autopen. That first
    year of the Presidency, Biden, I suppose, was relatively lucid,
    and 78 Executive Orders he signed by hand. The second year,
    however, we see the autopen emerge. The first autopen Executive
    Order was issued on July 15, 2022. After that day, 100 percent
    of the Executive Orders issued in 2022 were signed by an
    autopen. In 2023, Biden issued 24 Executive Orders; 16 were
    autopenned. In 2024, Biden issued 19; 14 were autopenned. In
    2025, Biden issued 14 Executive Orders. Every single one was
    autopenned.
        Mr. Wold, let me ask you as a legal matter, if there is a
    law that has passed both houses of Congress and it goes to the
    White House and a staffer autopens signing that law without the
    President's authorization, is that law legally passed and
    signed into law?
        Mr. Wold. No.
        Senator Cruz. If an Executive Order is issued and a staffer
    autopens it without the President's authorization, is that
    Executive Order legally binding?
        Mr. Wold. No.
        Senator Cruz. And if a pardon is issued from the President
    of the United States and a staffer autopens it without the
    President's authorization, is that pardon legally binding?
        Mr. Wold. No.
        Senator Cruz. Under the Biden White House, the ceremonial
    song ``Hail to the Chief'' was effectively replaced with ``Hail
    to the Pen,'' and it was an outright assault on democracy. And
    every reporter covering this ought to ask, why doesn't a
    Democrat care?
        We heard about the moral responsibilities of a staffer. How
    about an elected Senator who knows damn well that if we get
    into a war and Iran is preparing to fire a nuclear weapon at
    the United States, that the Commander-in-Chief is busy playing
    with his jello and is not competent to defend ourselves. And
    every member of the cabinet, the chief of staff, the press
    secretary, and the Members of Congress who lied about this on a
    daily basis with the press's complicity, they are all
    responsible for subverting democracy.
        Senator Schmitt. Senator Cornyn.
        Senator Cornyn. Professor Harrison, we have talked about
    the mechanics of the 25th Amendment whereby an incapacitated
    President would be removed. But it strikes me that, ultimately,
    it happened, albeit not before the end of President Biden's
    full term. What we saw happen after the disastrous debate in
    the summer of 2024 is basically an exercise of the powers of
    the 25th Amendment by the political elites and the Democratic
    Party to get President Biden not to run again and to substitute
    Kamala Harris for him as the Democratic nominee for President.
        So, Mr. Spicer, maybe the mechanics were a little bit
    different. Maybe the timing was not the same, but doesn't that
    demonstrate the capacity of the leadership of the Democratic
    Party, of the Biden family, of the senior staff in the
    President's administration to be able to convince the President
    that he no longer was capable of serving and needed to step
    down?
        Mr. Spicer. Senator, the left and their friends in the
    media like to throw around terms like threats to democracy,
    constitutional crisis. And if we don't have confidence in the
    leader of the free world making decisions, that truly is the
    definition of a constitutional crisis and a threat to
    democracy. So for all these folks to stand up here and use
    those phrases over and over again and then not have the desire
    to show up, to understand what's happening, to stand up at the
    time, as we discussed earlier, whether it was a staffer or a
    cabinet member, to literally avoid going to the Oval Office
    and, in the case of the media, to avoid the questions that were
    so clearly obvious to the rest of America, shows that they were
    more concerned with power and preserving that power and an
    agenda than they were at really caring about the Constitution
    and democracy.
        Senator Cornyn. I agree that that is the clear conclusion.
    And obviously, they decided to do it only at such a time as
    that ability to wield power was coming to an end. If in fact,
    President Biden had remained the nominee of the Democratic
    Party and then ran against and lost to President Trump, these
    folks would be out of luck and out of power, so they decided to
    act under that circumstance.
        Mr. Spicer. Senator, you look at a lot of these decisions,
    and it was pretty clear that there was a handful of folks at
    the top of the Biden administration and Biden White House that
    had been around him for decades where all of that information
    funneled. So I mentioned before, there are approximately 20, 25
    senior White House staffers that have the rank of assistant to
    the President. Those are the highest White House staffers. I
    would bet that only a handful of them ever interacted with
    President Biden on a daily basis. The rest of them had their
    communications funneled through other people.
        If the press secretary, the communications director, whose
    job it is to speak on behalf of the principal in lieu of them
    being able to talk or communicate don't have access to those
    individuals at the senior most level, then what good are they?
        And I would argue that while many times we heard people in
    the press and on the left accused the Trump White House of
    ``lying,'' for them to go out there and talk about the
    President's stance on issues, what President Biden thought or
    didn't think on a personnel issue or policy issue, when in fact
    they had never spoken to him, is in fact the epitome of lying.
        Senator Cornyn. One of the most consequential actions or
    inactions of the Biden Presidency during 4 years was his
    failures to secure our southern border and to deal with the
    illegal immigration. I have in my hand examples of the Biden
    immigration proclamations and Executive Orders, and there are a
    lot of them, as you know. They also include things like
    granting temporary protected status to large populations of
    immigrants, particularly from countries in Central America,
    rescinding Trump administration policies when it came to
    enforcing our laws at the border, granting parole, which is
    essentially a permission slip to enter the country in a way
    that would otherwise be illegal.
        And Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that this
    document be made part of the record as an example of the sort
    of consequential border security and immigration-related
    measures that President Biden purported to sign.
        Senator Schmitt. Without objection.
        [The information appears as a submission for the record.]
        Senator Cornyn. Mr. Wold, I do want to followup on a couple
    of things with you and Mr. Harrison and also Mr. Spicer. Under
    the Presidential Powers Act, we could have a special access
    request, correct, to the archivist to find out what assent was
    actually given by Joe Biden on the autopen. Is that your
    understanding?
        Mr. Wold. If they kept records, yes.
        Senator Cornyn. Right. Right. Well, I think that will be
    something we will be pursuing.
        Professor Harrison, I wanted to ask you, you know, sort of
    on the Article I branch's role--and I think I understand your
    concern when you say the President could do something, you are
    dealing with sort of a separation-of-powers issue is sort of
    what I am reading into that. So the Article I branch can
    impeach for high crimes and misdemeanors should the
    Constitution be amended, in your view, to deal with this
    incapacitation. So impeachment would be a vehicle beyond just
    the 25th Amendment, but impeachment would be a vehicle to deal
    with these issues.
        Professor Harrison. Senator, there is a longstanding
    question about whether impeachment is appropriate for
    inability. There has been questions right at the beginning of
    the republic about a couple of judges who were in very poor
    shape, not that they would committed crimes, they were
    impeached and removed, and there were doubts as to whether
    impeachment was appropriate for that because there was
    problem--their problem was age and inability.
        So you're absolutely right that there is a doubt right now
    whether the impeachment process--and it goes back a long, long
    way--whether the impeachment process is a way of doing--dealing
    with inability as opposed to misconduct. It's clearly primarily
    directed at misconduct, and I think that if Members of Congress
    are thinking about an additional constitutional amendment, and
    maybe they should be, they should think both about adapting the
    impeachment process to inability, which, as I say, right now
    it's not clear it's properly used in those situations, or
    creating yet some other political process to deal with
    Presidential inability if lawmakers think that the political
    process that is in Sections 3 and 4 of the 25th Amendment is
    inadequate.
        The last thing I'll say, just as a policy matter--and this
    is not speaking on the legal question--I do think it's
    important that any decision about Presidential inability remain
    something that's decided by politically accountable people,
    that it's treated as a political decision. It can't just be a
    technocratic decision.
        Senator Schmitt. Mr. Spicer, you have criticized the
    corporate media and legacy media folks for sort of lying down
    here or being complicit because of their, whether it is Trump
    derangement syndrome or whatever the reason was. Who
    specifically do you think gets a gold star for lying most
    profusely and just sort of continuing to cover this up over the
    years?
        Mr. Spicer. Sir, that would be like a photo finish. There
    would be a lot that would be probably right there at first
    place. They're all culpable. I mean, I read some of the
    headlines to the Committee earlier, The Washington Post, CNN,
    NBC, without evidence, to use their phrase, went after
    President Trump's physical and mental acuity and yet failed to
    ask similar questions of the White House press office publicly.
    They failed to cover the stories. I don't think that there's a
    winner. I think they're all losers.
        Senator Schmitt. Thank you. And then we will sort of wrap
    up here with Professor Harrison and Mr. Wold. So moving
    forward, we mentioned maybe possibly amending the Constitution
    or further exploring whether incapacitation is an impeachable--
    you know, if impeachment is a remedy. What other, in your
    experience, what other things moving forward could be done to
    make sure that this scenario that we saw play out over the last
    4 years never happens again?
        Professor Harrison. Senator, I think the most important
    thing that can be done is something you're doing right now,
    which is draw public attention to this problem, and so give
    Presidents an incentive to take steps that will reassure the
    people that they are sound and able to perform their functions.
        Senator Cornyn. Mr. Wold?
        Mr. Wold. I would agree with the professor and just add
    that there should be some accountability for the staffers and
    the officers of the United States who acted to conceal and to
    cover up the President's incapacity from the American people.
    One other issue that is tied up in sort of this bundle of
    incapacity, impeachment is also succession. And that's
    something so many have written about extensively over the
    years. We are very blessed that we have never had a double
    vacancy with the President and the Vice President, either
    because of terror attack or misconduct. That's something that
    legal scholars have said for many decades that Congress really
    has to work on that. And I would add, yes, in fact, that's
    something you all should take up with some seriousness.
        Professor Harrison. May I say spontaneously, yes, please.
        Senator Schmitt. Okay. Well, I want to thank the witnesses
    for your testimony here today. Written questions for them may
    be submitted for the record until June 26 at 5 p.m.
        And with that, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you.
        [Whereupon, at 12:24 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
        [Additional material submitted for the record follows.]

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                                A P P E N D I X

    The following submissions are available at:

      https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-119shrg61845/pdf/CHRG-119shrg
        61845-add1.pdf

    Submitted by Senator Cornyn:

     Examples of Biden Immigration Proclamations and Executive Orders.     2

    Submitted by Senator Hawley:

     Denying the Decline, Biden Declining, Democrats in Denial........    13

    Submitted by Senator Schmitt:

     United States Presidents, chart..................................    14

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