The autopen controversy emerged from an analysis of Biden’s signatures by the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing Washington-based think tank that authored Project 2025. It claimed Biden’s use of the device called into question the legitimacy of his executive actions.
Initially, the think tank’s assertions circulated on social media and the US’s myriad of conservative podcasts and conspiratorial blogs.
They were also picked up by Fox News and The New York Post, which acknowledged other presidents used the autopen. “But none has shown the same symptoms of senility and dementia [as Biden],” the newspaper said.
However, Newsweek reported the Heritage Foundation’s conclusions were fundamentally flawed because they were based on the National Archives’ digitised versions of Biden’s orders, which are not the original documents and all display the same computer-generated signature. The National Archive has been contacted for comment.
Furthermore, it was established in a 2005 Justice Department memo that the president need not physically sign documents and may delegate this task to a subordinate using an autopen.
Trump has toyed with the issue for a week, including posting a meme depicting portraits of the past three US presidents: Trump from 2017 to 2021, an autopen from 2021 to 2025, then Trump again.
Joe Biden was far from the only president to make use of an autopen.Credit: Bloomberg
But his subsequent TruthSocial post represented a significant escalation, with Trump directly claiming Biden’s pre-emptive pardons of key figures on the January 6 committee – Democratic Senator Adam Schiff and former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney among them – were invalid.
He also said these people would now be subject to investigation.
Following Trump’s post, Schiff responded: “The members of the Jan 6 Committee are all proud of our work. Your threats will not intimidate us. Or silence us.”
Since becoming president again, Trump has hinted at wanting to investigate Biden, his family and those who probed the January 6 riots.
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“I went through four years of hell by the scum that we had to deal with … It’s really hard to say that they shouldn’t have to go through it all,” he told Fox News in his first week back in office.
At a briefing on Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked whether Trump had received advice from legal counsellors that he could rule his predecessor’s pardons invalid. Leavitt said Trump was only asking questions about Biden’s competence.
“The president was begging the question that I think a jot of journalists in this room should be asking … did the [former] president even know about these pardons? Was his legal signature used without his consent or knowledge?” Leavitt said.
Asked whether there was any evidence Biden was not aware of the pardons, Leavitt said: “You’re a reporter, you should find out.”
On board Air Force One, Trump predicted the courts would ultimately decide the validity of the signatures. But Bruce Ackerman, sterling professor of law and political science at Yale University, was emphatic Trump’s argument would fall flat legally.
“The notion of an autopen is certainly not going to go anywhere in any court in the United States,” he said.
“The question is not whether you used an autopen but whether the president – any president – has given thought and consideration to the use of pardons and executive orders. The use of a mechanical instrument has no relationship to that.”
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