President Donald Trump has ordered an investigation into the Biden administration’s use of an automatic signature pen, alleging that Joe Biden wasn’t aware of many of his presidential orders and appointments.
“This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history,” Trump said in a memorandum Wednesday directing the probe.
Biden denied the allegations, calling them “ridiculous and false.”
“This is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations,” Biden said in a statement Wednesday, referring to the massive GOP bill to advance Trump’s agenda.
Here’s a look at what’s known — and what isn’t — about the allegations Trump has referred to on social media as “the biggest scandal in American history,” how they started and what might come next.
What is an autopen?
An autopen is a device that replicates a person’s signature or writings. Variations of it have been around for centuries — Thomas Jefferson got one in 1803 that he used to make copies of his correspondence.
They’re often used for mass reproductions of signatures on items like diplomas, and there are now digital versions.
Can presidents use autopens for official actions?
They can, according to 2005 guidance from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.
“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,” the guidance said. “Rather, the President may sign a bill … by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.”
Have presidents used autopens for official acts?
They have. President George W. Bush — who had requested the guidance from the Justice Department — did not wind up using an autopen for official actions, but both Biden and President Barack Obama did while they were traveling.
USA Today reported in 2017 that Obama used an autopen to issue dozens of pardons the previous year while he was on vacation in Hawaii. Biden, meanwhile, signed a funding extension for federal aviation programs via autopen while he traveling to San Francisco in 2024, CNN reported at the time.
How often did Biden use an autopen?
That’s unclear. There is no official record of Biden’s using an autopen for official government business.
Trump’s memorandum says, “The vast majority of Biden’s executive actions were signed using a mechanical signature pen, often called an autopen, as opposed to Biden’s own hand.”
Trump has offered no evidence to support the claims.
Has Trump used an autopen?
He has, but he maintains it wasn’t for anything important.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One in March, Trump at first said that “I never use” an autopen before he acknowledged that he had.
On Thursday, he said that “I think it’s very disrespectful to people when they get an autopen signature” but that he does use one to respond to letters. “I’d like to do it myself,” he said, but he added that he gets thousands of letters a week and it’s “not possible to do.”
What did Trump order with his new memo?
Trump’s memo directs “The Counsel to the President, in consultation with the Attorney General and the head of any other relevant executive department or agency (agency), shall investigate, to the extent permitted by law, whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President.”
It also orders a probe into “the circumstances surrounding Biden’s supposed execution of numerous executive actions during his final years in office,” including “policy documents for which the autopen was used.”
Asked by NBC News whether he has any evidence that anything specific was signed without Biden’s knowledge or that someone in the Biden administration acting illegally, Trump said, “No, but I’ve uncovered, you know, the human mind.”
“I was in a debate with the human mind, and I don’t think he knew what the hell he was doing,” he said Thursday, referring to his debate with Biden last year.
Did Trump request a criminal probe?
The Justice Department declined to comment when it was asked whether the investigation into the autopen issue is a criminal one. The White House counsel’s office does not conduct criminal probes.
The House Oversight Committee is also investigating Republican allegations about Biden’s using the autopen.
“Who was making the decisions? Who was authorizing his signature? Was it him?” committee chair James Comer, R-Ky., asked last month.
Have the courts weighed in on autopens?
The Justice Department guidance from 2005 hasn’t been directly challenged in court, but a ruling last year involving presidential pardon powers lent some weight to the finding.
A unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said presidents don’t have to issue written or signed pardons for them to be implemented.
“The plain language of the Constitution imposes no such limit, broadly providing that the President ‘shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.’ The constitutional text is thus silent as to any particular form the President’s clemency act must take to be effective,” the ruling said.
What is the source of the allegations?
While it’s unclear how Trump came to seize on the allegations, right-wing media has focused on them for months, fueled in large part by a study from the conservative Heritage Foundation that accused the Biden administration of extensive autopen use, largely based on the timing of when Biden signed documents compared with when he was traveling.
Some of the findings also came from an analysis of the signatures in the Federal Register. A National Archives spokesperson told the fact-checking website Snopes in March: “At the beginning of each administration, the White House sends a sample of the President’s signature to the Federal Register, which uses it to create the graphic image for all Presidential Documents published in the Federal Register.”
What is the objective of Trump’s order?
Trump’s memorandum doesn’t give any indication of what might result from the investigation.
Trump has already revoked scores of Biden’s executive actions — including about 80 on his first day in office — and he has suggested before that the use of an autopen could be used to challenge some of the pardons Biden issued.
“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 on Truth Social, referring to the pardons Biden gave to members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
There’s no evidence that Biden wasn’t aware of those pardons — he’d discussed the possibility he would sign off on them in a Jan. 8 interview with USA Today and later issued a lengthy statement explaining why he’d signed them.
Can a president rescind a prior president’s pardon?
While the Constitution give the president unique powers to issue pardons, it makes no provision for subsequent presidents to rescind them.
Jeffrey Crouch, a politics professor at American University and author of the book “The Presidential Pardon Power,” told NBC News in March that “Biden’s pardons are highly unlikely to be revoked somehow because of the apparent use of an autopen.”
What does Biden say about Trump’s allegations?
In his statement Wednesday, Biden said, “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
Trump told reporters Thursday that “I don’t think Biden would know” if he signed something.
