WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered an investigation into what Republicans claim was a \u201cconspiracy\u201d to cover up Joe Biden\u2019s declining cognitive health during his time in the White House.
\nThe move is the latest in a long-running campaign by Trump to discredit his predecessor, which has been joined by Republican Party politicians and their cheerleaders in the conservative media.
\nBut it also comes as a growing chorus of Democrats begin to acknowledge the former president appeared to have been slipping in recent years.
\nThose concerns were thrown into stark relief by a disastrous debate performance against Trump during last year\u2019s presidential campaign, in which the then-81-year-old stumbled over his words and repeatedly lost his train of thought.
\n\u201cIn recent months, it has become increasingly apparent that former President Biden\u2019s aides abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden\u2019s cognitive decline,\u201d a presidential memorandum issued Wednesday reads.
\n\u201cThis conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history.
\n\u201cThe American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden\u2019s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.\u201d
\nRepublicans have long claimed that Biden was suffering from intellectual decline even as the White House pressed ahead with major legislation and presidential decrees during his term.
\nThey cite his infrequent public appearances, as well as his apparent unwillingness to sit for interviews as evidence of what they say was a man incapable of doing the demanding job of Commander-in-Chief of the United States.
\nThey insist that those around him covered up his physical and cognitive decline, taking decisions on his behalf and using a device that could reproduce his signature to allow them to continue to run the country in his name.
\n\u201cThe Counsel to the President, in consultation with the Attorney General and the head of any other relevant executive department or agency… shall investigate… whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden\u2019s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President,\u201d the document says.
\nThe probe will also look at \u201cthe circumstances surrounding Biden\u2019s supposed execution of numerous executive actions during his final years in office (including) the policy documents for which the autopen was used (and) who directed that the President\u2019s signature be affixed.\u201d
\nBiden\u2019s calamitous debate performance ultimately sank his bid for reelection, with key Democratic Party figures soon calling for him to drop out of the race.
\nBut it was only several weeks later, after unsuccessful attempts to quieten his critics, that he withdrew, anointing his vice president Kamala Harris, who eventually lost to Trump.
\nThe Democratic Party is increasingly riven by squabbles about whether Biden could have been forced to step down earlier to give the party chance to find a more popular presidential candidate.
\nThe fight has been given oxygen with the publication of a book by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson that claims the former president\u2019s inner circle connived to keep him from public view because of his decline, which included forgetting familiar faces like Hollywood star and party stalwart George Clooney.
\nTrump\u2019s claims of a cover-up were also boosted by news that Biden is suffering from an \u201caggressive\u201d prostate cancer, with some voices on the right insisting \u2014 without evidence \u2014 the diagnosis must have been known some time ago to those close to the former president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered an investigation into what Republicans claim was a \u201cconspiracy\u201d to cover up Joe Biden\u2019s declining cognitive health during his time in the White House. The move is the latest in a long-running campaign by Trump to discredit his predecessor, which has been joined by Republican Party politicians …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":82085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82087,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82071\/revisions\/82087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}