In one of the most humiliating moments yet for Donald Trump’s post-presidency influence, two of his most loyal conservative allies—Fox News host Laura Ingraham and the editorial board of the National Review—have openly rebuked his latest political obsession: undoing President Biden’s pardons.
Under Trump’s direct orders, the MAGA-led House Oversight Committee has spent months conducting a legally hollow investigation into Biden’s use of presidential clemency. Their conclusion? That dozens of Biden’s pardons are “null and void.” Their authority to make such a declaration? None whatsoever.
What might have been another partisan headline quickly became a national embarrassment. On live television, Laura Ingraham—normally a staunch defender of Trump—delivered a pointed reality check to Oversight Chair James Comer, effectively dismantling the committee’s argument in real time.
“You can say they’re null and void all you want,” Ingraham said, “but there’s no legal mechanism for that. No court is going to touch the president’s pardon power. This is political noise, not law.”
Comer visibly deflated. For weeks, he had been acting as Trump’s proxy, leading a futile crusade to retroactively invalidate Biden’s pardons—some of which Trump claims shielded political opponents like Dr. Anthony Fauci or former congressmen Adam Schiff and Adam Kinzinger.
But even conservative legal experts agree with Ingraham. As CNN analyst Joey Jackson bluntly summarized, “Congress cannot reverse a presidential pardon. Never in the history of the republic has one been revoked.” The power of clemency, enshrined in Article II of the U.S. Constitution, is absolute.
The National Review, no friend to President Biden, reached the same conclusion in an editorial titled “The Outrageous Biden Autopen Scandal.” The publication accused Biden’s team of using an autopen—a mechanical signature device—to approve pardons while suggesting he was in cognitive decline. Yet despite this harsh framing, even the Review conceded the GOP’s crusade was legally meaningless:
“Acts of presidential clemency are final. As scandalous as mass commutations for the undeserving may be, nothing can undo them.”
That single sentence undercut months of MAGA rhetoric. The Review even acknowledged that Biden personally authorized the pardons “broadly speaking,” and that Trump himself had abused clemency “no less egregiously.”
The Wall Street Journal, Fox News’s sister outlet, echoed the sentiment. Their coverage noted that presidents of both parties—including Trump—have long used autopens for routine signatures. Legal scholars interviewed by the paper were unequivocal: there is no constitutional mechanism to invalidate a validly issued pardon.
Even the Biden White House, which rarely engages with such partisan attacks, issued a pointed statement:
“President Biden made the decisions of his presidency. There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, and no wrongdoing. Congressional Republicans should stop focusing on political retribution and instead work to end the government shutdown.”
For once, even Fox’s primetime lineup couldn’t spin this story. Ingraham’s on-air skepticism sent a rare signal of dissent inside Trumpworld. Her refusal to indulge the fantasy of “nullified pardons” effectively acknowledged what legal scholars, editors, and even conservative pundits agree upon: Trump’s vendetta has no basis in law.
Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, summarized the moment succinctly:
“While House Republicans obsess over President Biden’s health, they’re ripping away health care from 17 million Americans. The only person’s health they seem to care about is Joe Biden’s.”
In other words, while Trump’s allies chase phantoms, the real crises—governance, healthcare, and a looming government shutdown—go unaddressed.
Even among conservatives, there’s a growing recognition that Trump’s vengeful theatrics have become a political liability. When Laura Ingraham and the National Review—two of the most dependable voices on the right—are publicly contradicting the MAGA narrative, it’s more than a rift. It’s a reckoning.
Trump’s order to “undo Biden’s pardons” may go down as one of his most absurd political stunts yet—one so flimsy that even his own media allies refuse to carry it.
