President Donald Trump, who has railed against Canada for its trade policies, blamed Ukraine for being invaded by Russians and criticized judges for ruling against him, has found a new enemy on which to focus his ire: The autopen.
Previous presidents have used the relatively mundane technology to affix a presidential John Hancock on documents when there are too many to sign or it’s logistically difficult to do so. It’s something akin to a real estate deal via DocuSign, but occasionally with much bigger consequences.
The autopen is a machine that uses real ink to duplicate a human signature. It is commonly used for greeting cards, certificates and printed sales pitches.
Trump recently claimed that Joe Biden routinely used the device and suggested without evidence that his unelected aides sometimes did it without his knowledge, illegally usurping the executive powers of the presidency.
“It looked like we had an autopen for a president and we would’ve been better off if we had, probably,” Trump told reporters around midnight Sunday as he flew back from Florida. “Did he know what he was doing? Did he authorize it? Or is this somebody in an office, maybe a radical left lunatic, just signing whatever that person wants?”
Trump also said the documents Biden did not physically sign were “null and void” — potentially setting up a legal battle even though a number of reviews have concluded that the autopen signings are just as legitimate as ones where a handheld pen is applied to paper.
“That’ll be up to a court, but I would say that they’re null and void,” Trump said. “Because I’m sure Biden didn’t have any idea that it was taking place. And somebody was using an autopen to sign off and to give pardons to, as an example, just one example, but the J-6 unselect committee. Think of it, they gave pardons with an autopen. I don’t think Biden knew anything about it.”
By Monday morning, Trump said he would not honor the pardons Biden made just before leaving office — in particular those of members and staff of the Joint Select Committee that investigated Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, including former Republican representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland).
The pardons, Trump wrote in a
Truth Social post, were “hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.”
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California), one of the most prominent members of the committee,
responded by writing, “The members of the Jan. 6 Committee are all proud of our work. Your threats will not intimidate us. Or silence us.”
The Justice Department did not weigh in Monday on Trump’s declaration that Biden’s pardons were void. Nor did it rescind a 2005 internal Justice Department memo that deemed presidential documents signed by autopen legitimate.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday did not answer directly on whether Trump wanted Justice Department officials to pursue those Biden had pardoned.
She was also pressed about the lack of evidence that Biden was unaware of orders authorized during his presidency but offered none herself.
Leavitt cited
a New York Post story in which an anonymous former Biden administration official suggested that an unnamed staffer had significant authority over which documents to auto-sign with Biden’s signature.
“I think it’s a question that everybody in this room should be looking into, because certainly that would propose, perhaps criminal or illegal behavior if staff members were signing the president of the United States’ autograph without his consent,” Leavitt said.
A spokeswoman for Biden declined to comment on the claims.
The focus on Biden’s signature can be traced to The Oversight Project, a research arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation that
posted on social media March 6 that it had examined a wide range of documents with Biden’s signature that were all the same. But much of their initial analysis relied on documents in the Federal Register, which posts the text of executive actions but a digital signature rather than the original.
Because the hard copies — which would contain the actual signature — belong to the National Archives, it is difficult to determine precisely how many times Biden’s White House used an autopen.
Mike Howell, executive director of the Heritage Oversight Project, said the group has tried to obtain original scans of the documents, which could cost around $20,000. But the group has also narrowed its focus to pardons, which Howell says are ripe for legal challenges. The organization has also questioned the validity of
a set of pardons from Dec. 30, 2022, when Biden was on vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands, that includes a signature listed as having been made in Washington.
“We’re considering hiring a handwriting expert should the need arise just to buttress this up,” Howell said.
Almost from the birth of the nation, U.S. presidents have used devices to assist their handwriting. Thomas Jefferson owned several polygraphs — an invention that allowed for several pens to make simultaneous copies as the author wrote —
and used them daily while president.
John F. Kennedy was said to use one, and Lyndon B. Johnson was photographed with one. The
National Enquirer in 1968 published an article suggesting that he was not in control, with the headline: “One of the best kept secrets in Washington: The Robot that Sits in for the President.”
The device was often used for correspondence and was a subject of fascination by autograph collectors but did not appear to create any legal consequence.
The Justice Department,
in an opinion issued in 2005, advised President George W. Bush that there was nothing legally problematic about using an autopen.
“The President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law,” Howard C. Nielson Jr., the deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote in the 30-page opinion.
“We emphasize that we are not suggesting that the President may delegate the decision to approve and sign a bill, only that, having made this decision, he may direct a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to the bill,” he added.
While Bush never used an autopen to sign legislation, Barack Obama utilized it a number of times, including in 2011 when he was in France and authorized an extension of the Patriot Act. Obama used it again in Indonesia to sign an appropriations bill to keep the government funded, and in Hawaii to sign a tax bill.
In some instances, Biden’s aides went to great lengths to bring documents to him for his signature.
In January 2023, a White House staffer shuttled a 1,653-page spending bill in three carry-on bags to St. Croix, where Biden was vacationing, so that he could sign it,
according to Politico. The prior year,
an aide flew to South Korea so that Biden could affix his signature to legislation authorizing $40 billion in aid for Ukraine.
But there were also times when he used the autopen.
White House officials
acknowledged in May 2024 that Biden had used it to sign a one-week extension of funding for the Federal Aviation Administration. In that instance, the president was traveling in San Francisco, seeking to ensure there was no lapse in funding.
On major pieces of legislation, Biden, like his predecessors, held ceremonial events at the White House, signing the parchment and passing out the pens used to do so.
While conservatives
have pointed to similarities in the signatures, it has not been confirmed that Biden used an autopen on the pardons Trump has focused on. But a solicitor general in 1929 wrote a memo to the attorney general concluding that the president’s signature was not required for pardons.
“Neither the Constitution nor any statute prescribes the method by which Executive clemency shall be exercised or evidenced. It is wholly a matter for the President to decide, as a practical question of administrative policy,” the memo stated.
“Custom and propriety require that the pardoned man be given some token to show he has been pardoned. That need not have the President’s autograph. If it shall bear the facsimile signature and be certified by an official having charge of the records as having been issued by the President, or his direction, that will be sufficient … To burden the President with the labor of singing the warrants is, as a matter of law, wholly unnecessary.”
Trump has often made a major display of signing documents. He typically calls reporters into the Oval Office and, with a thick black marker, affixes his signature to legislation or executive orders and then holds it up for the cameras. A White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly said Trump’s policy has been to hand-sign every legally operational or binding document.
Trump on Monday afternoon told reporters that he has used an autopen “only for very unimportant papers,” such as when people write in and request a response.
“We may use it, as an example, to send some young person a letter because it’s nice,” he told reporters the previous evening on Air Force One. “We get thousands and thousands of letters and letters of support for young people, for people that aren’t feeling well, etcetera. But to sign pardons and all of the things that he signed with an autopen is disgraceful.”
