Did Donald Trump really intend to reverse Joe Biden's pardons? Or did he just attempt to goad the press into discussing Biden's cognitive impairment?

Reporters at the White House took the bait today, either way. They pushed Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to explain what Trump meant by saying that Biden's autopenned pardon were "hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT." Leavitt responded by claiming that Trump was only "begging the question" that reporters refused to ask during the last presidency:

Leavitt: Was [Biden] aware of his signature being used on every single pardon that's a question you should ask the WH

Kaitlin: Is there any evidence on that?

Leavitt: You're a reporter you should find out pic.twitter.com/NeZW3GRpvu

— Media Research Center (@theMRC) March 17, 2025

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that President Trump was “begging the question” when declaring former President Joe Biden’s apparently auto-penned pardons were “void, vacant, and of no further force of effect” — as the practical effect of the current commander in chief’s pronouncement remains in question.

Leavitt said that Trump — who wrote on Truth Social media early Monday that recipients were henceforth “subject to investigation” — was “raising the point” that the clemency might not be legal.

“The president was raising the point that, ‘Did the president even know about these pardons? Was his legal signature used without his consent or knowledge?'” Leavitt said at her regular briefing Monday.

“Was he aware of his signature being used on every single pardon? That’s a question you should ask the Biden White House.”

Hmmm. Smells like a climbdown, or at least that's how we would have reacted to this series of events in a Biden administration. 

And we have evidence for that, in fact. Joe Biden abruptly declared that the Equal Rights Amendment had been ratified and called it "the law of the land." Biden had just as much constitutional authority to do that as Trump has to reverse previous presidential pardons, a point we made repeatedly. When the National Archives refused to follow that directive, reporters asked the White House whether they would fire the archivist and order the change. The Biden White House suggested that this was just intended to start a conversation about the status of the ERA, a conversation that went absolutely nowhere. In fact, it seems a bit like ancient history after two whirlwind months of Trump II.

On the other hand, Trump did actually get the White House press corps to take an interest into Biden's senility in office. For a moment, anyway. That might be a win, as long as the White House sticks to the idea that canceling pardons already issued is only trolling the media rather than a legal order with any impact. Let's see if that's where it stays. 

Update: VIP member A.W. Guerra observes:

Also, the trolling is forcing not only the press, but likely the other two branches of government into addressing the matter of just how "plenary" a president's plenary powers are and whether or not there really are any limitations on the president's powers to pardon.

I would love to see this act as a catalyst on this question. Most states have checks on gubernatorial clemency actions; we need something similar at the federal level. It likely would require a constitutional amendment, given the language in Article II Section 2, but if crafted well enough would likely interest Democrats and Republicans after the last few months of pardons from Biden and Trump. It could be as simple as allowing a supermajority in Congress to challenge or overturn a presidential pardon, or as intrusive as requiring a congressional vote to execute a clemency action. It's a conversation worth having -- although not as important as investigating what really took place in Biden's White House.