This is Incredible stuff from Jeff Childers …deserving of a highlighting post

“It’s now official: the history of the decline and fall of the Biden empire will be written. It might take even more than Gibbon’s six volumes about the Roman Empire. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a long-awaited story headlined, “Trump Orders Investigation Into Biden’s Actions as President.” In particular, they’ll be looking into Biden’s “use” —if you can call it that— of the infamous Presidential Autopen.

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Do you suppose they’d let you sign your mortgage loan with an autopen? Let’s say you’re at the closing table, and decide to run out for a quad-shot mochachino. I’ll be right back, guys; the Autopen will take care of this stack of papers, don’t worry.

I’m thinking: no.

Yesterday, President Trump formally ordered the White House Counsel and Attorney General Bondi to investigate whether Joe Biden’s presidential authority was “unlawfully exercised” by presidential staffers using an autopen, especially while Biden was having his bad days. In other words, Biden’s cognitive fitness is now the subject of an official DOJ investigation.

? There are two separate areas of incalculably vast implication. The first is that Trump has shattered another “norm and custom.” The “old way” was that successive presidents covered for each other— regardless of political party.

Trump isn’t just shattering a norm, he’s dynamiting the entire gentleman’s agreement that presidents don’t investigate each other once out of office, no matter how sloppy, senile, or shady things got. That informal truce —call it The Uniparty’s Mutual Immunity Pact— was never any kind of law, just a closely held and vastly frustrating gentleman’s agreement. But bull-in-the-china-shop Trump, as always, is gleefully smashing the crockery.

Biden’s legal capacity to govern is now squarely in the court of public opinion. If the investigation leads to a report (almost a sure bet), and the facts about how the presidential sausage was pressed prove ugly, the Democrats have even more problems on their hands heading into the 2026 midterms.

Trump is retroactively forcing Democrats to defend Biden’s fitness, turning what should’ve been a quiet, graceful fadeout into a humiliating postmortem. It’s Mueller 2.0, but reversed. This time, rather than Trump, it’s Democrats who are the ones spinning, lawyering up, and sweating subpoenas.

? The effect on the upcoming midterms could be tectonic. Democrats will likely be forced to take sides in the debate, without knowing what evidence will trickle out next. It’s a political minefield scattered all over the 2026 campaign trail. Dems who defend Biden risk looking complicit if damning memos or testimony later emerge. But those who try to distance themselves will fracture the party’s unity and invite civil war within the base.

Tellingly, the Wall Street Journal article did not cite any defenders of President Biden’s use of the autopen besides the old man himself.

Unsolvable, party-shattering issues for Democrats are mounting up. Just off the top of my head: Biden’s capacity, men in girl’s sports, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and DEI policies. Every one of those confounding problems is fraught with political peril. I’ll give you two recent examples.

First up: Governor Newsom recently tried to tack toward a Clintonesque third way when, on his podcast debut, the oleaginous governor quite reasonably agreed with Charlie Kirk that men playing in girls’ sports was ‘unfair.’ The immediate blowback from the left was reminiscent of standing in front of a 747’s jet engine. Somehow the Governor’s hair was unmoved, but the message was sent: don’t even try moving toward the center.

Second, just yesterday delivered news of Biden’s former Press Secretary’s defection from the Democrat party. Super-diverse Karine Jean-Pierre, or whatever her name is, is publishing a tell-all book about a “broken” White House, and simultaneously announced she is now an independent because she can’t stand Democrats anymore. The left was not happy. Axios: “Bidenworld goes scorched earth on Karine Jean-Pierre.”

The other stratospheric angle, which may be less important, includes the legal possibilities. If the investigation turns up even one internal “smoking gun” memo proving aides acted without Biden’s full buy-in, which also seems likely, and then Trump declares some Biden order or pardon invalid, it’s headed back to the Supreme Court. The Court will be forced to weigh in on the legality of Autopen scribbles, probably defining a narrow set of rules that must be adhered to for valid use.

And if the Supreme Court does set down Autopen rules, as it did with Presidential Immunity, it could give Trump a clear roadmap for going after other Biden orders and pardons. Trump would say, “I’m just following the rules they gave us. This is how we restore integrity.” Meanwhile, complaining Democrats will be left defending illegal procedures, fraudulent governance, or both.

Democrats are soon approaching a moment of Reckoning.™ Up to now, they’ve mostly succeeded in papering over Biden’s cognitive decline—with controlled appearances, friendly media, claims of cheap-faking, and an aggressive “how dare you” reaction to critics. But, like Biden’s mental fitness, that strategy also has an expiration date, and Trump may have just punched the clock. ”