Did Joe Biden decide who received pardons and commutations? The New York Times cast fresh doubt on the legitimacy of thousands of clemency actions this week.

Biden refuted allegations that he didn’t authorize the auto-pen for every pardon issued at the end of his term. However, the Times reviewed e-mails during the post-election period, and discovered that aides compiled the pardon lists and then affixed Biden’s signature to most of them with the mechanical device. It included a controversial pre-emptive pardon to Anthony Fauci, among other administration officials, as well as thousands of others in blanket pardons.

This obviously calls into question the validity of these clemency actions.

The real issue is Biden’s competency. Put simply, we need to know who exercised authority granted exclusively to the elected president. The pardons are the entrée to accountability. We need to focus on the most important question – who was the real president in the Biden administration?