It Could Happen Here - Why Trump is Obsessed with the Autopen

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

Garrison talks with Robert about Republican investigations into the  presidential autopen as a way to rescind pardons and remove judges. Sources: https://www.shapell.org/behind-the-scenes/the-robot-pen/ https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1908354 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/lead-investigator-james-comer-biden-autopen-digital-signature-rcna216719 https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/05/politics/autopen-trump-biden-analysis https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/us/politics/biden-pardon-autopen-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/us/politics/biden-clemency-interview.htmlSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Jeff Perlman. And I'm Rick Jervis.

We're a journalist and hosts of the podcast Finding Sexy Sweat. At an internship in 1993, we roomed with Reggie Payne, aspiring reporter and rapper who went by Sexy Sweat. A couple years ago, we set out to find him. But in 2020, Reggie fell into a coma after police pinned him down, and he never woke up. But then I see, my son's not moving. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own.

Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat on the Eye Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime.

On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth. He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology is already solving so many cases. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is It Could Happen Here, the show about things falling apart. One thing falling apart last year, I guess the president's mental health, seemingly so. And we're going to talk about that today and some possible ramifications that the current president may be trying to, to exploit to help him out. Robert Evans, hello, how are you? I'm fine. Is something wrong with the

president? The current one or the old one? Any president ever. Has a president ever done wrong? I heard some nasty things about Mr. Clinton. Interesting. I woke up today for the first time. So this is all new to me. Yeah, just don't look on like the news or the internet or anything and it should be okay. That's good. I'm just going to start reading Wikipedia at the section and see if I get to anything bad about a president. So since taking office, Trump has actually sort of been going soft on old sleepy Joe, not out of the goodness of his own heart, right, but to possibly explore legal options to get around some of the roadblocks Trump's been facing in the judicial branch.

Yeah, that makes sense. Trump's been arguing that Biden himself was mostly absent, especially during the later half of his presidency. And a sort of like secret cabal of cabinet members, DNC consultants, White House staff and aides were running a shadow presidency. Yeah. And one of my constant takes is there are no secret cabals. There's a lot of cabals. They're all very obvious. Very public cabals. Very public cabals. But this, this secret cabal of like DNC interns were using Biden's signature via autopen to set policy. see, make judicial appointments, and sign orders. All with little to zero awareness from

poor old, sick, sleepy Joe. In fact, people around Biden intentionally covered up his declining health to continue using his presidential power for their own progressive agenda. If only they'd used it for that and not just to keep getting paychecks. Or sending bombs to Israel. Or sending bombs to Israel. Many of the other things that Biden seemed preoccupied with. I'm going to play a clip from a month and a half ago, Donald Trump, current president, explaining this conspiracy of this secret Joe Biden cabal. I'm sure that he didn't know many of the things. Look, he was never for open borders.

He was never for transgender for everybody. He was never for men playing in women's sports. I mean, he changed. I mean, all of these things that changed so radically. I don't think he had any idea that what was, frankly, I said it during the debate. and I say it now, he didn't have much of an idea what was going on. But he shouldn't be, I mean, essentially, whoever used the auto pen was the president. And that is wrong, it's illegal, it's so bad, and it's so disrespectful to our country.

Transgender for everybody. The defining legacy of the Biden era is his core policy platform. Yeah, okay. I don't know, like what do you even say at this point, right? like honestly he's sending troops into the second major city this one the capital and taking over control of the police force how much is it worth just being like oh and he said another thing that's not true like i know it's important to cover all this but also like man i'm tired oh yeah no it's it's incredibly frustrating because they get to deploy these these absurd little lines every once in a while and it captures media attention and the physical things that they're doing do not get as much like awareness. And there's this constant, I think, misinterpretation as to like, this is all a

distraction from this and this and this. And it does sometimes function that way, but this isn't, they're not doing this because it's a distraction. They're doing this because they also hate this group of people. They also want to hurt this group of people. There's a lot of people they want to hurt and they want to do it in different ways. And they're kind of playing a longer game with the focus on this quote unquote auto pen. And it remains to be seen if it's going to be successful or you know pay off for them but i i do want to talk about it now since this is on like you know month like four of them slowly seeding this into popular discourse it's like a new thing because every once in a while they have to decide what the new thing is right a few years ago they decided

it was trans people they decided it was DEI they decided it was how the 2020 election was stolen they just decide that there's like some major problem and then they repeat it often enough that it becomes like something that seemingly a share of voting actually care about, and they're trying to make Autopen be a thing. And there is actual, like, possible results of them focusing on this, as we, as we will see. But the Autopen fixation started this past March when Trump posted a truth on truth social, claiming that Biden's preemptive pardons of members of the January 6th investigation House committee are, quote, hereby declared void, vacant, and of no further force of effect because of the fact that

they were done by Autopenn, unquote. Great. This is not real. This is not like a real thing that he can just claim on truth social. But what's real, you know? There is no requirement that pardons even be signed, only that they're accepted by a subject. In 1929, the U.S. Solicitor General concluded in a memo that, quote, neither of the Constitution nor any statute prescribes the method by which executive clemency shall be exercised or evidenced.

So he can't just do this here, but this was kind of the opening of the door for the rest of what we're going to talk about this episode. And I guess before we get into that, I should talk about what an autopen is. An auto pen is a tool to automate the signing of documents by replicating a signature, and this is a machine or a type of machine that's long been used in the White House. Thomas Jefferson bought and used an early iteration of such a device shortly after was patented in 1803, Lyndon B. Johnson's Autopen was photographed in the White House for a National Enquirer a cover story titled The Robot That Sits in for the President. And it's funny that now you get Fox News headlines that are basically written very similarly

talking about how actually a robot or the Autopin itself was acting as president. And that's like a controversy. Okay. Versus it was just like a fun news story back in the 50s. How many of the guys angry about this literally want an LLM to be the president? Yes, exactly. that's that's my question no at least at least half at least half the other half don't know what an l l lm is no now obama is the first president to openly sign legislation with an autopan including the extension of the patriot act in 2011 while at the g8 summit in france and though the constitutionality of the autopan has never been tested or explicitly determined in court in 2005 president george w bush asked the justice department for its opinion on the validity of the autopan for signing legislation and other official policy documents.

The Office of Legal Counsel found that, quote, the president need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law. Rather, the president may sign a bill by directing a subordinate to affix the president's signature to such a bill, for example, by Autopan, unquote. Though there still is debate whether the president needs to be

physically present during this process or simply authorize the signing. And you know, you have people like Stephen Miller in this administration who try to find niche little laws or statutes to then apply in a way that was probably never designed or we have, since these laws inception, have decided not to use the laws in that way because that doesn't make sense for our current context. But someone like Miller, very willing to do such a thing. And there could be, for instance, some obscure aspect or interpretation of like proxy signature laws that they could try to like force through into their interpretation. of, like, Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution, which might make some auto-pen signatures invalid, but this is something that's, like,

kind of dismissed in a lot of legal circles because, as, like, a practical matter, it would be disastrous to start rescinding executive actions based on this interpretation, because, like, decades and decades of laws and regulations would then fall into question and possibly become void. So lots of people just, like, kind of don't think this is, like, a real question or a real concern.

And part of me thinks that as well, but as someone like Miller has demonstrated, they're, they're absolutely willing to use like niche arguments or precedents to do some pretty, like, crazy stuff. Do you know what is not very crazy, Robert? Paying money to the sponsors of this show? It's an extremely reasonable act. It's the only sane thing you can do. If you do anything else, you are being 51-50 and you'll be on an involuntary 72-hour hold. That's the way the law works.

Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all, childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the stream to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner.

He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was.

Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it.

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on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville, Tennessee. But the most unforgettable part, our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor,

and aspiring rapper. And his stage name, sexy sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down.

He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you, but then I see, my son's not moving. No headlines. No outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to finding sexy sweat on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but...

Going through something like that is a traumatic experience, but it's also not the end of their life. That was my dad, reminding me and so many others who need to hear it, that our trauma is not our shame to carry. and that we have big, bold, and beautiful lives to live after what happened to us. I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leitra Tate. On my new podcast, The Unwanted Sorority, we wade through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like, and sounds like in real time. Each week, I sit down with people who live through harm, carried silence, and are now reshaping the systems that failed us.

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So with this Biden Autopin'Open thing, it's not, really about the autopen. The auto pen actually is not the problem here, kind of at all. That's not what they're really focusing on. In early June, the Justice Department launched an investigation into Biden's alleged use of the auto pen, with the DOJ pardon attorney Ed Martin, writing in an email that this investigation is to determine whether Joe Biden was, quote, competent and whether others were taking advantage of him through use of the auto pen or other means, unquote. With a specific focus on the preemptive pardons for members of Biden's face, family, and clemency for 37 death row inmates whose sentences were converted to life in prison.

So this is the real crux, whether Biden was competent and whether people were using the auto pen without his knowledge. And I think the reason why they're starting by focusing on these pardons, whether for January 6th investigation committee members or for those close to Biden, like this all relates to Trump's campaign promise of like retribution, right? You can think of Cash Patel's list of deep state actors that he wants to investigate. Like, that was such a core part of what Trump campaigned on, and he does still seem keen on fulfilling, like, parts of that promise. Now, Ed Martin, the DOJ pardon attorney investigating this auto pen debacle, himself has said that the president's pardon power is absolute and that using the auto pen is, quote, not necessarily a problem. But I think the core part here is that it's not about the auto pen itself. It's about this secret cabal who are using,

the auto pen without Biden's knowledge. So a few days after this investigation was announced, the White House released a public memo from Trump entitled, Reviewing Certain Presidential Actions, which ordered the Attorney General and the White House counsel to investigate, quote, whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden's mental state and unconstitutionally exercise to the authorities and responsibilities of the president. And this document reads like something I would read on like a conspiracy theory website, years ago. It's written in very similar style. Quote, President Biden's aides abused the power of

presidential signatures through the use of an autopent to conceal Biden's cognitive decline and assert Article 2 authority. This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history. The American public was purposely shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power. All while Biden's signature was deployed across thousands of documents to affect radical policy shifts, unquote. The memo states that Biden's advisors, quote, and quote, tried to hide the true extent of his mental decline to, quote, cover up his inability to discharge his duties, unquote. The investigation specifically wants to look into which policy documents were signed via autopen, and who ordered the president's signature

to be affixed to said documents. One other quote from the memo, quote, the White House issued over 1,200 presidential documents appointed 235 judges to the federal bench and issued more pardons and commutations than any administration in United States history. Although the authority to take these executive actions, along with many others, is constitutionally committed to the president. There are serious doubts as to the decision-making process and even the degree of Biden's awareness of these actions being taken in his name. Given clear indications that President Biden lacked the capacity to exercise its presidential authority, if his advice visors secretly used the mechanical signature pen to conceal this incapacity while taking radical

executive actions all in his name, that would constitute an unconstitutional wielding of the power of the presidency, a circumstance that would have implications for the legality and validity of numerous executive actions undertaken in Biden's name. Unquote. So though the 2005 Bush DOJ memo does support the use of the autop pen to affix the president's signature, obviously it still must be the president who decides to sign a document. Right. With the Office of Legal Counsel memo stating, we do not question the substantial authority supporting the view

that the president must personally decide whether to approve and sign bills. This is pretty obvious. And that's why so much of the autopen investigations are around Biden's deteriorating mental state and not the auto pen itself. It's about trying to prove whether Biden was either not mentally capable of sufficiently authorizing a signature to be affixed to certain documents, or was just completely unaware that the Autopin was signing certain documents, with White House advisors specifically covering up Biden's mental decline

to take advantage of his compromised state to personally direct policy. And that's what the investigations are going to try to prove. The White House is already making repeated assertions that this was the case, and this question may be finally settled in a Trump-sympathetic court. And Republicans are currently trying every angle of attack on this, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has started a Senate investigation, and a House Oversight Committee investigation is already up and running. The past month, Kentucky Republican James Comer has been subpoenaing Biden admin officials to testify on the use of the autopen and Biden's mental faculties while in office. Comer's own letters and subpoenas for this investigation have been signed with a digital signature, because this is such a common practice in Washington.

and like all over the country now. Right. Try to think of all the official documents you sign on your computer, right? Yeah. Now, metadata from a subpoena cover letter sent to former senior advisor to the first lady, Anthony Bernal, showed the document was authored and signed by someone named Benzine, an oversight committee staffer, not James Comer. Because, again, this is pretty regular.

So even the investigators are doing this process themselves while doing the investigation. Part of the reason why the Republicans are trying to make this a, continuing story and not just about, you know, the pardons is because as like Biden appointee judges began blocking Trump's executive orders, the focus on the auto pen turned from just pardons towards use of the auto pen to nominate federal judges. And this is where things get a lot more slippery. Last month, Fox News asked House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, if not just Partons may be found to be null and void because of the results of this investigation, but possibly also judicial appointments.

Biden made 228 judicial appointments, including 45 appeals court and 187 district court judges. And most importantly, Biden appointed Justice Kachanji Brown Jackson, the court's most long-winded justice who couldn't even define what a woman is. Mr. Chairman, you mentioned that you're looking at some of the pardons that were done under President's Biden and the use of the Autopin, Dr. Fauci being one of them, talking about whether they were legitimate or not, are you also looking into Biden's judicial appointments as well? Absolutely. Everything that was signed with the Autopin, especially in the last year of the Biden presidency,

this is when all the books that are being written, all the tell-all interviews that are being recorded from his former disgruntled staffers and staffers who are trying to preserve the reputation for future employment. They're all saying that Joe Biden was in a deep mental decline and that he was protected by a very small inner circle. We brought a few of those people in the inner circle and asked them simple questions like, were you ever told to lie about the president's health? And they couldn't answer that question. They had to plead the fifth to avoid self-incrimination. This raises an issue whether these pardons, whether these judicial appointments, and whether these executive orders are legal.

I believe that if this investigation keeps going in the way that it's going, that's going to raise serious concerns about whether or not Joe Biden, even knew what was going on around him, much less whether he authorized the use of his signature on all of this stuff. I think all of these are in jeopardy of being declared null and void in a court of law, and that's a big deal for the Trump administration because so much of what Trump is up against in court now with these liberal biased Biden appointed judges is the fact that they're used. using and citing some of these executive orders as reason to throw out President Trump's agenda and President Trump's executive orders. So they tried to trump-proof the administration on the way out the door. And the problem they've got now is the American people realize that Joe Biden wasn't the one calling the shots, and he may very well have not even been mentally fit to make decisions to authorize the use of his auto pen if he even authorized it.

So this is going to play out in a court of law. I think our investigation is going to be a substantial part of evidence in it. And that's why we're doing the investigation. Ah, yeah, that's the rub right there. That's exactly what they want, right? Is to completely peel back the last administration or two of judges and make it just be all their people, a whole justice system that they completely control. If they could recall, like, 230 federal judges.

Yeah. and fill in 230 more, like, Trump-appointed judges, that would clear out so much of the, like, legal roadblocks that they're currently facing. Yep. And that is the real, like, crux of their focus on this issue. That's why they're trying to, like, insert this into reality. And they're throwing this autopen story, like, everywhere.

Even the Epstein files, which don't exist, were concocted by the ever-suspicious auto pen. It's a hoax that's been built up way beyond proper. portion. I can say this. Those files were run by the worst scum on earth. They were run by Comey. They were run by Garland. They were run by Biden and all of the people that actually ran the government, including the autopen. Whatever the current big news story is, they're going to try to shove the auto pen in there because that's how they operate. That's how they craft reality.

Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all, childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant,

but he wasn't shot on a street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as

boot camps are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months. The first night was so overwhelming, and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville, Tennessee. But the most unforgettable part are roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name, sexy sweat. In 2020, I had a son.

simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you, but then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to finding sexy sweat on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it.

They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog, we'll be. identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it.

He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors, and you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases, to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we are back. So needless to say, Biden and his advisors have denied all of this.

And it's a little tricky because part of what makes this story slightly compelling for Trump's team is that, obviously, Biden's mental health was in decline for the past few years of his presidency. We all saw that happen. That is like a accepted part of our country's history now. We all saw the debate and so much of their argument for this is resting on

how much everyone understands that. You have a whole bunch of former White House staff writing books on this topic now. So with that aspect in mind, they still have to defend the use of the autopan and Biden's competency and awareness of all of the decisions being made.

To do this, last month had his first interview with The New York Times since, like, 2021, where he discussed how he gave oral authorization for all of the pardons, with the autopen operation specifically being managed by the staff secretary, Stafine Feldman. He said, quote, I made every decision. Biden said that the White House used the autopen specifically for the last batch of pardons. Biden said that they used the auto pen because of the high number of pardon warrants issued, totaling around 4,000. which affected three categories of federal convicts, people surfing home confinement, nonviolent drug offenders, and people on death row. He did not choose or approve like every single name on that list, but claims to have determined the criteria and categories, saying, quote, I was deeply involved.

I laid out a strategy how I want to go about these, dealing with pardons and commutations. I pulled the team in to say, this is how I want to get it done, generically, and then specifically, unquote. In preparation for the final months of the Biden presidency, his White House counsel wrote an email to staff in like November of 2024, laying with the process for reviewing pardons, the last step being, quote, the president makes the final decision on the final pardon and or the commutation slate, unquote. At this point, around a dozen people have been subpoenaed and are giving testimony and the investigation is looking through emails from the time, specifically starting with these pardons, because I think that's the only way, they have to like investigate this right now. It's easier to investigate the pardons from the last three months of the presidency than just all of the documents assigned over the course of like four years or even just two years if you look at like the past two years of his presidency. So specifically they're focusing on the the final pardons as like a way in to figure out the process for how the auto pen was functioning and who was using it. And they may try to extend that process

out to things like judicial appointments over time. I think trying to rescind the appointment of someone like a Supreme Court justice, very unlikely, because obviously Biden had awareness that that was going on. But they might try to pull more fucky shit with the, you know, circuit court appointments or that kind of stuff. I don't think this is like the most important story facing the country right now. Obviously, the stuff going on in Washington, D.C., and many other aspects of how the Trump administration is operating with ICE and with trans people affects people more immediately. But I've been specifically trying to pull information on how they're crafting this narrative around the Autopan ever since he made that first truth back in March, because I saw this as

an ongoing reality crafting project, which might accumulate in something actually meaningful over time. And none of these investigations have released their findings yet, and they're not expected to for at least a few more weeks to months. But it's something that I think is worth keeping an eye on right now, especially considering, you know, Miller and others and like the Heritage Foundation's focus on trying to find niche loopholes in which executive power can be really exercised. And if one of the ways to remove some of the roadblocks towards this president's executive power is to undermine the executive power of a previous administration, it would be the first time we see that strategy actually enacted. And it sounds like kind of cartoonish, but that's

so much of what they're currently doing is pushing everything to, to that extreme, trying to test all of these more niche theories that you see people talking about in the past, like around 2011 when Obama first signed legislation with the auto pen, you had a whole bunch of libertarians complaining that this is unconstitutional because he wasn't physically present when the document was being signed. And so you have like think pieces on that at the time that then kind of get memory hold and now you're going to see some of some of those justifications back again and actually try to test them out in court especially if you have a justice department investigation you have an attorney general investigation you have a Senate investigation and a house investigation if one of those

can stumble onto or develop or invent some compelling argument we will actually see versions of this complaint be tested in a way that we never have before because it would be like disastrous to the functional aspect of the state. If you, if you determine that all presidential documents signed via Autopin are not ballot unless the president's in the room, that would be a massive domino tipping over, which, you know, most reasonable people who work in government, like elder statesmen, are not going to want to do that because that sounds like a fucking nightmare, like legally speaking. And it would be like disastrous. Like it would destroy some fundamental aspects of the government. But right now, destroying aspects of government is kind of the point.

that's what we saw with Doge. That's what we saw during the first few months of the presidency using this kind of tech startup thought process behind running a government. You have to break things first so that you can rebuild it in a way that suits you better. And if that means stripping away 200 federal judges to put in 200 of your own, that would have massive benefits for them. And I think that's part of why they're having this focus right now. Oh, yeah. That's kind of all I have on that. So once you have some closing thoughts, No, I mean, of course this is the game as laid out in not just Project 2025, but what the right has been talking about my entire life. Like, none of this should be surprising if you've been paying attention.

The only reason why some people are surprised is that there's folks in the Democratic hierarchy who have been saying for years, this isn't really what conservatives want. This is just a fringe, right? There is no fringe anymore. They'll never actually do this. They can't do this. the system doesn't work that way. There's just been this belief that this can't happen, right? It can't happen.

Or that, like, if it did, obviously, you know, the cops will stop them. The FBI will stop them. The Army will stop them. And there's a reason why they've went out of their way to gain control of all of those organizations before doing this. So, yeah, I mean, you cannot, we can either pretend that someone's going to stop them and you don't have to worry about it or just accept that we are where we are

and there may be some unprecedented things that need to be done. Yep. That's all I'll say. Legally, that's all I should say. That's the episode. Bye, bye, everyone. Okay, cool.

It could happen here is a production of Coolzone Media. For more podcasts from Coolzone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free.

I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect. Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell. And the DNA holds the truth.

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