Much has been documented in the period between the very proud Donald J. Trump Administrations about the obvious lack of a prideful executive in these United States of America. A brief summary as noted here leading up to and just after the 2024 election (as pulled from the links at the end of this post):
The oval office has been occupied since January 2021 by a hollow vessel happy to have the title but without an ounce of pride in the authority that goes with it and the uses of it done in his name by others…nameless, faceless others. … The US has no functional president and has not had one for months, and it’s barely noticeable and barely matters because there’s a permanent unelected machine that runs the government. … The Most Sustained Acts of Political Incompetence in the History of the American Presidency.
I highlight that one word above to point out what is clear to all willing to see: all of the destruction done by the FJB administration did not play out over a complete four-year term due to the endurance and perseverance of leadership entrusted to the man in the arena. The puppet regime was allowed to play out until its very disgusting end by an anti-American Left marinated in the silliest forms of anti-intellectualism, a willfully ignorant and/or reliably incurious media providing cover every step of the way, and an opposition party establishment more interested in keeping the uni-party gravy train going (and, in many cases, maintaining constant conspicuous displays of their Never Trump bona fides) than doing the right thing for the country, for the republic, and for our American Liberties.
Well, it seems that we are now, after the fact, going to start questioning more formally the legitimacy of the actions of a puppet president instead of just fundraising for Mitch and the Gang while tiptoeing around (or just completely ignoring) the larger implications of the situation:
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has done something that could be extremely significant.
Bailey is demanding the Department of Justice investigate whether Joe Biden’s cognitive decline “allowed unelected staff to push through … policy without his knowing approval.” …
“If true, these executive orders, pardons, and all other actions are unconstitutional and legally void,” Bailey claimed. …
…it then raises big questions. Was he actually signing the orders? Did he understand and approve, if he did sign them?
[Emphasis added]
More from the text of the letter from the Missouri Attorney General:
There are profound reasons to suspect that Biden’s staff and political allies exploited his mental decline to issue purported presidential orders without his knowing approval. … Staffers…cannot constitutionally evade accountability by laundering…orders through a man who does not know what he is signing. If in fact this has been occurring, then all of those orders are void. …
It is black-letter law that a document is void…when the person signing it lacks mental capacity. …
Who has been running the country for the last couple of years? I fear that Mr. Biden, while he held the office of President, did so in name only and was a mere puppet for … unelected staffers. The people deserve to know the truth.
[Emphasis added]
There is much in there about not knowing what he is signing and if the auto-pen is a legal signature…all interesting and worthy topics to be sure. But brining this up now sure seems to be mostly pointless: the former topic should have been front and center three years ago (as the system that provides the 25th Amendment required of a serious government of, by, and for We the People) and the latter should have been litigated years ago when Obama abused the technology. Not that the Roberts Court would have provided any real satisfaction, but it was the right thing and the right time for real leadership to do.
Doing this now is little more than documentation for history. I agree that is a worthy cause and I do wholeheartedly applaud Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey for putting this into the public discourse.
But no Biden EO or pardon is going to be changed…and, at this point, I don’t think they should be. (Of course, if – or when – this topic is brought up over a supposed cognitively diminished DJT at some future date, expect the driven narrative anti-intelligentsia to instruct us otherwise. See Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and his Gang. But I digress.) I want a system with a proud executive worthy of the office exercising clearly defined powers with appropriate oversight by equally worthy representatives and powers from co-equal branches of government. Since nobody saw fit over the 1,461 days of the FJB ‘presidency’ to challenge the legitimacy of his signature (real or auto), his term ended under the full power of the office (as understood and adjudicated at the time). All of the actions and the overall record now stand as presidential and legal history.
I am but a mere engineer, not a lawyer or a political scientist so I invite you to convince me otherwise.
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Links to the Prideless Executive Series
In the Name of Biden – ‘The Most Sustained Acts of Political Incompetence…in the History of the American Presidency’ (December 6, 2024)
Bad Faith Governance and the (Intentional) Absence of the Proud Executive (August 20, 2024)
The Prideless Candidate Model of the American Left (September 2, 2024)
An Administration of the Prideless – The Path to the Well Earned and Humiliating ‘Indifference’ of the Masses (September 13, 2024)
The Curse of a Prideless Executive – None Dare Call it a Republic (October 27, 2024)
(NOTE: There is a “Bad Fail Governance” set of posts that preceded this series, only one of which exists here: Bad Faith Governance – The ‘They aren’t even pretending otherwise anymore’ Edition (August 12, 2023). The rest of those posts are now safely re-hidden behind the Member Feed at the legacy site where I am no longer allowed to roam. If you have access over there the links are provided among the legacy posts listed on this site.)
the philo t. custis institute 