President Donald Trump suggested Monday that the legality of autopen-signed pardons should be decided by the courts, questioning whether former President Joe Biden’s final clemency orders, including controversial preemptive pardons, are valid.
In a Truth Social post, Trump said Biden’s pardons, including those granted to members of the House Jan. 6 Select Committee such as former Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), along with former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, were “VOID” because they were allegedly signed using an autopen, a mechanical device that replicates a signature.
“The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,” Trump wrote.
He further alleged that Biden was unaware of the pardons, suggesting that those who executed them could be guilty of criminal conduct.
When asked aboard Air Force One whether executive orders and pardons signed by Biden via an autopen were legally valid, Trump responded, “I think so. It’s not my decision. That would be up to a court.”
Q: "On the Biden autopen. Are those executive orders, those pardons…now null and void?"
Pres. Trump: "I think so. It’s not my decision. That’ll be up to a court. But I would say that they’re null and void because I’m sure Biden didn’t have any idea that it was taking place." pic.twitter.com/p0a9AqRbck
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 17, 2025
What is an autopen, and why does it matter?
An autopen is a device that replicates a person’s signature and has been used by U.S. presidents and lawmakers for decades. The National Park Service’s White House and President’s Park Facebook page posted last year that the first commercially successful autopen was developed in 1942 and “quickly gained popularity in the government.”
However, no president used an autopen to sign legislation until 2011, when former President Barack Obama used one from France to authorize a four-year extension of the Patriot Act, a post-9/11 anti-terrorism law. This move was controversial at the time, with 21 Republican lawmakers signing a letter demanding that Obama resign the bill by hand, though Obama believed he was on solid ground thanks to an investigation put forth by his two-term predecessor.
In 2005, former President George W. Bush asked the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to determine whether an autopen signature could be used to sign legislation into law. At the time, the Bush administration refrained from using the device on legal documents out of concern that its use might not meet constitutional requirements.
“We find that, pursuant to this understanding, a person may sign a document by directing that his signature be affixed to it by another,” according to the OLC opinion. “Reading the constitutional text in light of this established legal understanding, we conclude that the President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill to sign it within the meaning of Article I, Section 7 [of the Constitution].”
Allegations against Biden’s autopen use
Trump’s claims followed a report by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, which alleged that Biden used an autopen to sign “nearly every document we could find” during his presidency.
“We gathered every document we could find with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency. All used the same autopen signature except for the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the race last year,” the Oversight Project said.
WHOEVER CONTROLLED THE AUTOPEN CONTROLLED THE PRESIDENCY
We gathered every document we could find with Biden's signature over the course of his presidency.
All used the same autopen signature except for the the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the… https://t.co/CC3oJUkNr4 pic.twitter.com/mtNrZsALDu
— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) March 6, 2025
Between 2021 and 2024, Biden signed at least 20 documents that bore seemingly identical signatures. However, CNN reported in 2024 that Biden’s administration rarely used the device, citing examples of Biden personally signing key documents, such as a $40 billion Ukraine aid package in South Korea and a bill to prevent a government shutdown while on holiday in St. Croix.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has so far offered some of the most direct evidence that Biden was allegedly not aware when signing documents. In January, Johnson recounted a meeting with Biden early last year and suggested the former president may have been unaware of an executive order on energy exports that he supposedly signed. Johnson said Biden only recalled authorizing a study on liquefied natural gas, not an actual order that paused the export of LNG.
Public concerns over Biden’s cognitive problems hit a fever pitch after a report from then-Special Counsel Robert Hur suggested his age may have played a role in the mishandling of sensitive records, as did Hur’s decision not to charge the then-president despite Trump facing an indictment for mishandling records. The report did not suggest Biden was incapacitated but noted that his memory lapses made it difficult for investigators to determine intent.
Yet critics of Biden, including Trump, have long maintained he was not cogent at times, which has allowed the pen dilemma to present itself as another opportunity for critics to revisit whether all of Biden’s actions were made with absolute intent.
“This is something I’m actually really interested in and would like to see a full investigation as well as a day in court,” political commentator Stephen Kent wrote on X. “The Biden ‘autopen’ and the several cases of him appearing not to know about things he’d signed is something the ‘save democracy’ crowd should care about.”
Could courts weigh in?
Trump’s challenge to Biden’s alleged autopen use raises the slim possibility of a legal test of presidential signature authority, as courts have also never definitively ruled on the limits of their use.
However, the views of courts and legal experts have suggested a challenge may not be successful.
Last year, a 2024 federal appeals court decision asserted that pardons need not even be made in writing to be considered valid.
“The first principle resolves the matter of whether a writing is required as part of the President’s exercise of the clemency power. The answer is undoubtedly no,” the court held.
Meanwhile, Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan Adler said there is nothing illegal about pardoning someone before charging documents are filed.
“There might be a serious legal question about pardoning without specifying the conduct that you’re being pardoned for, right? So the blanket pardon for Hunter Biden … a blanket pardon might be problematic because it’s not clear what you’re pardoning somebody for,” Adler said.
Unlike Biden’s other last-minute pardons, which included some specificity as to what conduct would be covered for officials, including Fauci or Jan.6 committee members, Hunter Biden’s pardon was sweeping and seemingly covered all parts of his life, including “but not limited to all” the prosecutions conducted by special counsel David Weiss.
Adler said he believes “the only way this becomes an issue” for courts is if the Trump administration tries its luck to prosecute one of the subjects of Biden’s pardons.
HOW JOE BIDENS AUTOPEN CONTROVERSY TOOK ON A LIFE OF ITS OWN
In a post on X, Kinzinger taunted Trump hours after his Truth Social post, a sign that the anti-Trump Republican is ready to call the president’s bluff.
“Come on, dude. Bring it,” Kinzinger said.
