However, she added that she was not aware of what actions or approvals took place between the time she sent the decision memo and the time she received it back with the necessary approval.
But the necessary approval from whom? Who signed it, if anyone? Did it just say "approved?" I read the article and it didn't say. I'll listen to her testimony if I can find it.*
I remember a brief exchange during the testimony of LTC Oliver North about his role in the Iran-Contra efforts. At one point, he claimed he had gotten back an approval memo for some action he proposed with the "approved" line checked instead of initialed. There was a brief discussion of whether there was such a thing as "forging a check mark."
North also would send memos ending with a line such as "Unless otherwise directed, I will proceed as described above." This allowed him to claim that silence from the receiver indicated approval, while the person addressed could (and did) later say that they never got the memo.
The system of approval used, according to Tanden's testimony relayed to Fox News, was inherited from previous administrations.
I don't doubt it.
In a system like ours, in which all executive power is vested in one individual, that individual will have to trust staffers to act on his or her behalf. To what degree staffers carefully follow what they know to be the wishes of the executive will vary.
The Biden Administration was unique in that he was clearly unfit to make decisions for much, if not most, of his time in office. It's hard to know if any indivdual use of the autopen complied with his desires as president, because we don't know for sure that he was aware of being president.
I don't know of any autopen signing that could be said to violate what we know about Biden's thought process during his more lucid moments. I understand the desire to invalidate things like pardons signed by the autopen. But I don't favor that. Why prosecute Hunter Biden, for example? I see no good coming from that.
Will ever document ever signed by an autopen by any previous president now be invalid?
*Of all of this, the most scandalous as far as I'm concerned is the Democrats' cowardice in not attending the hearings.