The legal basis for his argument appears uncertain, but Donald Trump has sought to drum up outrage over his predecessor Joe Biden’s supposed use of autopen to sign presidential pardons and other documents.
Trump’s attack on auto-signatures ignores that they have been used by previous presidents and that there is no evidence Biden even used the technology for signing pardons, which gave immunity to a string of Trump political opponents.
However, the narrative taps into Trump’s longtime theory that a senile Biden was not in charge as president, while a mysterious “deep state” pulled the strings.
The eye-catching autopen issue also serves to soak up attention as Trump is accused of a brazen push to expand his own powers.
The Justice Department is clear that autopens can be used to sign laws.
In 2005, it said the president does not need to sign a bill by hand and can instead direct “a subordinate to affix the president’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.”
Such rulings do little to curb Trump, or Project 2025 the right-wing think-tank group that has pushed the autopen as an attack line.
Trump said on social media on Monday that Biden’s pardons are void because Biden “did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!”
That followed up on last week when Trump said Biden “was grossly incompetent. All you have to do is look he signs by autopen.
“These are major documents you’re signing. You’re proud to sign them. You have your signature on something in 300 years, they say ‘Oh, look.'”
The autopen process reproduces signatures and is common across US government and business for routine letters, photographs and promotional material.
Autopen signatures have been used for presidential pardons in the past, and a hand-written autograph is not needed legally, experts say.
In 2011, the New York Times reported that Barack Obama had become the first president to sign a bill by autopen while in Europe. Paper versions are still sometimes flown to the president for signing.
In his last days in office, Biden, now 82, issued a series of notable pardons for people targeted by Trump including Biden’s own son, lawmakers who probed Trump, a military general who had criticized Trump and the country’s top Covid expert.
“I am not afraid of Trump’s latest midnight rant that has no basis in reality,” Bennie Thompson, one lawmaker pardoned by Biden, said in a statement to Axios news.
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