Former President Joe Biden relied on a mechanical autopen to sign official documents far more often and under more questionable circumstances than previously reported.
Biden used at least three different autopen signatures throughout his presidency to authorize executive actions, proclamations, and pardons, including in situations in which he was physically in Washington and actively signing other paperwork by hand, according to new revelations from the Oversight Project, a government watchdog formerly part of the Heritage Foundation.
“We pulled official presidential proclamations from the National Archives for the first two years of the Biden administration,” one of the Oversight Project’s lead investigators, Kyle Brosnan, told the Washington Examiner. “There’s around several hundred of them … and through that analysis, we were able to determine that there was a third autopen signature that was used to sign those proclamations” in early 2021, Brosnan said.
How was the third Biden signature discovered?
To date, Brosnan’s research team has identified three distinct signatures his watchdog believes have been used for signing documents throughout Biden’s single term in office. Previously, his team only identified two signature copies used throughout his term.
The watchdog has labeled the signatures in question as Autopen A, B, and C. Autopen C, the third and newly discovered version, was used to sign hundreds of proclamations with uniformity, strongly suggesting mechanical reproduction. The development raises new questions about who was wielding presidential authority in Biden’s name — and when.
This third autopen signature was only discovered last week when Oversight Project researchers were examining Biden’s proclamations in the first months of his presidency. They tracked uniformity in the use of a signature on those written decrees and eventually found that a signature matching Autopen A was also used in one of the president’s declarations.
Biden only used Autopen C for presidential proclamations and signed all executive orders and clemency warrants himself during the first 17 months of his presidency.
Biden’s autopen habit increased in the summer of 2022
The pattern changed dramatically starting June 13, 2022, when the autopen was first used to commute a federal inmate’s sentence. Just a month later, it was used for the first time to sign an executive order on a July 15 visit to Israel — and from then on, its use increased.
The autopen was even deployed on at least eight separate dates when Biden was in Washington and personally hand-signed public bills. On Aug. 3, 2022, Biden participated in virtual events from the White House and signed multiple public laws by hand, but an executive order for “securing access to reproductive” services was mechanically signed. The same pattern was repeated on Sept. 30, Dec. 13, and Dec. 23 of that year, when Biden publicly signed legislation or attended in-town events, but continued to use an autopen for signing various executive orders.
Because Biden signed other legislation while working in D.C. on these days, it “raises serious questions about why the autopen was used so frequently when the President was readily available to sign these critical documents personally,” the Oversight Project wrote in a statement. “Indeed, on multiple occasions, the President affixed his wet signature to a Bill the same day the autopen was used on an Executive Order.”
In December 2023, Biden was again in Washington conducting holiday visits while two executive orders were executed by autopen. That same month, per Original Sin, a recent book by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, Biden was documented as mentally struggling during at least two separate holiday party appearances.
The pattern of taking executive actions via autopen continued in November and December 2024, including a day when Biden signed two bills by hand while the White House was not holding any official events or gatherings, even as an executive order adjusting “certain rates of pay” for government offices was signed via autopen.
Oversight Project investigators found that most, if not all, of the executive orders issued during Biden’s brief final stretch in office in January 2025 were mechanically signed. Overall, more than 87% of autopen-signed executive orders in 2022 occurred while Biden was physically present in Washington, with 75% of orders signed via autopen in 2023, a reduced rate of 57% in 2024, and 78% in his final 20 days in office this year.
Mike Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project, called the situation “one of constitutional importance,” saying that “we did not have a president for four years — deeply embarrassing.” He said his team of investigators expects logs to exist detailing “who can use the device and when it is used,” noting, “This will be one of the easiest investigations of all time, if the authorities take the proper steps.”
Questions emerge over three separate signatures
It is still unclear why three distinct autopen signatures were used throughout Biden’s presidency. But one source familiar with the matter offered two leading theories.
“It could line up with staff changes,” the source said. “Biden had different chiefs of staff throughout his tenure. He had White House staff secretaries throughout his tenure — folks that would have access to the autopen, particularly the chief and the staff secretary. So maybe a new staff secretary gets named, gets the key card for the autopen, and that’s the signature that’s loaded when they use it.”
The source also suggested a more strategic motive might have been at play. “Maybe that was intentional — to cover up the president’s mental decline and his variants of signatures.”
Notably, none of the signed executive orders between August 2022 and December 2024 stand out as matters that would have defied the president’s policy agenda at the time. The core theory behind his administration’s use of the pen hinges on the notion that orders were being signed without his awareness, which begs the question as to which one of these orders involves a policy that he would have objected to.
Government investigations escalate
In the backdrop of these findings is Biden’s heavy reliance on mechanical signatures for clemency decisions at the end of his term in office, which the House Oversight Committee, led by Chairman James Comer (R-KY), has made a focal point for its congressional investigation.
Biden’s autopen was used to sign controversial preemptive pardons for people, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Biden family members, as well as 37 of 40 commutations granted to death row inmates, including some convicted of killing children and police officers. Notably, the former president used a real pen for the pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, which protects him from prosecution for possible crimes for an 11-year period.
President Donald Trump, who says he only uses an autopen for superlative signatures like letters and other unofficial business, ordered a Justice Department investigation last week into whether Biden aides may have exploited Biden’s diminished condition to carry out executive functions on his behalf.
“This is a matter of constitutional importance,” Howell said. “I want to see grand juries convened, subpoenas issued, documents recovered, and people testifying in public.”
Howell also pointed to a Senate hearing on June 18 on Biden staffers’ alleged cover-up of his decline and the inquiry led by Ed Martin, the current U.S. pardon attorney and special counsel for internal DOJ reform.
“The White House, with Ed Martin leading the charge as both the pardon attorney and the weaponization czar, is all over this,” Howell said in a Fox Business interview Monday, signaling that internal DOJ reviews of Biden’s clemency process are already underway.
As Republicans escalate their autopen inquiries, they also confront the difficult task of proving Biden’s use was illicit and whether it was even criminal. A 2005 DOJ dispensation told former President George W. Bush the machine was fine to use for legislation, and despite some controversy at the time, former President Barack Obama is documented using the tool at least twice while traveling abroad.
Biden’s corner decries ‘Benghazi’ 2.0
Biden has denied that his staff acted without his direction. “I made the decisions during my presidency,” he said in a statement last week.
His allies have pointed to the long history and legal precedent for an autopen signature to reflect the decisions of the president, and they note that using an autopen is not only standard for a modern White House but also legal.
The former president’s office declined to offer additional comment this week.
Two former Biden White House staffers told the Washington Examiner that they were not surprised the former president’s official office declined to comment for this story.
“I do think, immediately after this investigation was announced, there was a feeling inside President Biden’s circle that they needed to clear the air — that there was nothing bad or illegal going on,” one aide explained. “That went out the window once Republicans demonstrated they’re going to treat this like Benghazi all over again.”
The aide was referring to House Republicans’ formation of a select committee to investigate the 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador. Then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy acknowledged that a purpose of the committee was to bring down the poll numbers of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her presidential run when she lost to Trump.
HOW BIDEN’S ATTEMPT TO ADD A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT HIS AWARENESS
A second former aide gave a more critical response as to why Biden’s office simply could not account for the discrepancies.
“This isn’t some cover-up. There just isn’t a suitable, rational answer when the explanation sounds more like laziness than anything else,” that person assessed to the Washington Examiner.
