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The Moment Of Truth...Who Signed 117 Documents When Biden Was In Delaware? · Gil I Am

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  Speaker 1: And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment of truth. It
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  Speaker 1: begins with a pen, or rather the absence of one.
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  Speaker 1: For centuries, the scratch of ink on paper has been
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  Speaker 1: the hallmark of authority, the tangible proof that a leader's
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  Speaker 1: hand has shaped the course of history, from the Magna
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  Speaker 1: Carta to the Declaration of Independence. A signature isn't just
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  Speaker 1: a name. It's a promise, a commitment, a mark of accountability.
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  Speaker 1: And in the highest office of the land, where every
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  Speaker 1: decision carries the weight of a nation, you'd think that
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  Speaker 1: mark would be sacrasanct. Well hold that thought. Picture the scene,
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  Speaker 1: May twenty six, twenty twenty one. The White House is buzzing,
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  Speaker 1: the ink still drying, or so they thought, on a
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  Speaker 1: fresh batch of official documents, executive orders, appointments, maybe even
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  Speaker 1: a pardon or two, the kind of paperwork that keeps
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  Speaker 1: democracy humming. But there's a hitch, a whisper behind the curtain.
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  Speaker 1: The president, you see, isn't in Washington. He's in Delaware,
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  Speaker 1: a good one hundred and twenty miles away, enjoying a
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  Speaker 1: quiet retreat at his family home. And yet those documents, signed,
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  Speaker 1: sealed and delivered. How you ask enter the autopen, a
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  Speaker 1: mechanical marvel, a ghost in the machine. Now, the autopen
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  Speaker 1: isn't new. It's been around since the days of Thomas Jefferson,
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  Speaker 1: who rigged up a contraption to duplicate his own scribbles.
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  Speaker 1: Presidents like Eisenhower and Kennedy used it too, mostly for
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  Speaker 1: Christmas cards and thank you notes. But here's where the
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  Speaker 1: plot thickens. In twenty twenty one, a report from the
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  Speaker 1: Government Accountability Office, those watchdogs of the public purse raised
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  Speaker 1: an eyebrow they'd gotten when that this little gadget, this
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  Speaker 1: stand in for the presidential hand, might have been dipping
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  Speaker 1: into bigger ink pots, official proclamations, legal directives, the stuff
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  Speaker 1: that changes lives and not just wants, mind you, but
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  Speaker 1: dozens of times, maybe hundreds, over the course of Joe
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  Speaker 1: Biden's presidency. Take that day in May, for instance, Biden's
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  Speaker 1: in Delaware, but the White House insists he signed a
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  Speaker 1: slew of documents. The Press Secretary Jensaki brushes it off
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  Speaker 1: with a smile. Oh, we've got our ways. Ways. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: the autopen, it turns out, had been humming along, churning
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  Speaker 1: out signatures while the man himself was sipping coffee on
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  Speaker 1: a porch two states away. Legal technically, yes, prior administrations
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  Speaker 1: had cleared its use with a nod from the Justice Department. Convenient,
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  Speaker 1: you bet. But here's the rub who's minding the machine?
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  Speaker 1: That's what folks started asking. Lawmakers like Ted Budd, then
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  Speaker 1: a congressman, now a Senator, weren't so sure. If the
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  Speaker 1: President's not putting pen to paper, Bud wondered aloud, who's
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  Speaker 1: really calling the shots. The GAO report didn't name names,
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  Speaker 1: but it hinted at a shadow. One hundred and seventeen
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  Speaker 1: instances where the auto pen stood in for Biden's hand,
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  Speaker 1: all logged quietly in the Federal Register. No public fanfare,
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  Speaker 1: no press release, just a mechanical were in the background.
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  Speaker 1: And while the White House swears every use was authorized,
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  Speaker 1: there's no paper trail to prove it, no memo, no directive.
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  Speaker 1: Just trust us, they say. Now, pause for a moment.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine Harry Truman, who once said the buck stops here,
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  Speaker 1: or Abe Lincoln scratching out the Emancipation Proclamation by lantern light.
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  Speaker 1: Could they have handed their legacy to a machine? Maybe?
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  Speaker 1: But here's the twist. Biden's not alone in this tale.
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  Speaker 1: Word has it. Barack Obama's auto pen once signed a
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  Speaker 1: debt ceiling bill while he was half way across the globe.
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  Speaker 1: Even Donald Trump, they say, kept one humming for the
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  Speaker 1: odd thank you note, But a hundred and seventeen times
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  Speaker 1: in two years. That's a rhythm all its own. So
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  Speaker 1: next time you hear of a law passed, a pardon granted,
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  Speaker 1: or an order issued, picture that quiet little gadget clicking
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  Speaker 1: away in some white house corner, a signature without a hand,
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  Speaker 1: a promise without a pulse, and you might wonder, as
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  Speaker 1: some do now, who's really behind the pen. And that,
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  Speaker 1: my friends, is the moment of truth. This is Gil.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.