When is a presidential pardon not a pardon?
Whenever Trump exercises executive power, causing the courts to rule on the limits of presidential power – something that has occurred with most presidents including Obama and Biden – it’s one of politics’ many bleak ironies that the very same people who shriek “Hitler!” at Trump would and did defend any power stretch of Obama’s and Biden’s. And those same people were decidedly incurious about who might be running the White House during Biden’s obvious cognitive decline.
Then it was recently revealed that the vast majority of Biden’s executive orders were signed with autopen. These were not little thank-you notes, or congratulations from the president on reaching your 100th birthday. These were important orders that are not ordinarily treated that way:
The majority of official documents signed by President Joe Biden allegedly used the same autopen signature, reinvigorating concerns over the former president’s mental acuity and if he “actually ordered the signature of relevant legal documents,” a report published by an arm of the Heritage Foundation found.
“WHOEVER CONTROLLED THE AUTOPEN CONTROLLED THE PRESIDENCY,” the Oversight Project, which is an initiative within the conservative Heritage Foundation that investigates the government to bolster transparency, posted to X on Thursday.
“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. Here is the autopen signature,” the group claimed on X, accompanied by photo examples.
Autopen signatures are ones that are automatically produced by a machine, as opposed to an authentic, handwritten signature. …
Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey sent a letter to the Department of Justice on Wednesday of last week demanding an investigation be opened into whether Biden’s “cognitive decline allowed unelected staff to push through radical policy without his knowing approval.”
That article was from March 9.
Now President Trump has questioned whether Biden’s pardons are operative if it turns out he didn’t know he issued them; it’s not about autopen use per se but rather autopen use without knowledge (either lack of knowledge because of cognitive decline or – what would be an even stronger argument – lack of knowledge because the president wasn’t even informed in the first place). It’s a good question, one that (as far as I know) has never been adjudicated. Here’s the AP’s completely “objective” take [my emphasis]:
President Donald Trump accused his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden of using the mechanical device to sign pardoning documents, rather than doing so by hand. Trump claimed, without providing evidence, that Biden had no knowledge or approval of the documents.
How on earth could Trump be expected to provide ironclad evidence that proves Biden didn’t know? The evidence that was provided so far does imply it, however, if most of the documents were not signed by Biden himself. I don’t think he has a hand disability that would explain the lack of actual signature, nor has anyone in the Biden camp attempted to explain as yet.
So till then it seems reasonable to question the signatures and force the courts – preferably SCOTUS – into a decision on the merits. It may be that there is such as strong presumption that a president is in control of both his signature and his autopen that the pardons will be declared legal. But Trump’s point is well-taken and worthy of an investigation and ruling.
Bulls**t Back Better was ALWAYS the name of No Malarkey Joe’s game…
Meanwhile, heeeere’s…Trump’s Recession(TM) Revisited….
“The Biden Recession Will Now Be Revealed”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2025-03-14/real-cause-market-selloff-recession
“And those same people were decidedly incurious about who might be running the White House during Biden’s obvious cognitive decline.”
I would say decidedly anti-curious. Not only would they not see the obvious they would call you names for doing so.
I like that Trump is forcing the issue. However, I assume the squish Roberts won’t let SCOTUS anywhere near a ruling on this.
Even if the question of the pardons goes nowhere in the courts, Trump’s bringing up the issue highlights what a fraud the Biden presidency was.
Perhaps an investigation of autopen-gate will produce (unwillingly of course), an individual(s) that will admit that they themselves (or others that they identify) signed off on documents without the authorization of “president” joke bidet.
I guess this would void many documents that were auto-penned, but what exactly would be the crime? ……. what law is it that was actually violated??
Impersonating a president?
Forgery?
Anybody know??
Here is my guess; DOCTOR Jill Biden was the autopen-gate document signer.
Otto Penn (of Scranton) was not president. This would not fly for a real estate deal. The escrow company sent a notary out to meet me in my little no stop light town to witness my signatures.
Reading there are 2 auto-pens in use, and at least 1 was declared from DC while Sundowner wasn’t there.
Melakon controlled the autopen
Roberts thinks the principle of the independent functioning of the President of the United States isn’t important, it’s just a tax.
As BHO observed FJB will F’up anything he (or the autopen) touches. The aide who was running the country “jumped the shark.”
Was the aide a Doctor? Doctor Who?
Doctor Hubris?
I can think of a possible hand signature disability. Parkinson’s patients often begin to produce very, very small handwriting, laboriously produced. The White House wouldn’t have admitted to that while Biden was still president, and still running for a second term, because they didn’t want to admit to any illness.
It’s certainly worth investigating. If witnesses begin to say that direct verbal orders to sign from Biden were lacking, this may mean orders so signed are void.
Adding to what Skip said. If it can be proved that Biden was somewhere else, like Delaware,
when the pardons were “signed”, is that prima facia evidence of possible misuse? I wanted to say fraud, but didn’t
So till then it seems reasonable to question the signatures and force the courts – preferably SCOTUS – into a decision on the merits.
I’m not sure how the Supreme Court could or should weigh in on a plenary executive power like the pardon.
This is an entirely new situation, as far as I know, I don’t know of any pardon that was later taken back by a different President, or even governor, but maybe it has happened. (I know that there has been at least one case of a President having taken back his own pardon on the ground that he would never would have granted it had he had all the facts in front of him.)
It seems to me that this has no way to go anywhere, unless Trump chooses to have someone that Biden pardoned prosecuted for the thing he was pardoned for. Then a court could get into whether that person had a “real” pardon, one that Biden knew and approved of before the autopen.
I suspect this is more about calling attention to the abuse of power by Biden’s staffers than any real effort to nullify pardons. As usual with things Trump, it’s not really about what it seems to be about.
Niketas:
Probably that, at the very least. There also could be legislation to add requirements such as witnesses.
Maybe it was the autopen what was runnin’ the country.
(Before anyone shouts “But that’s absurd”, keep in mind all the unicorns and Easter bunnies that was carousing around the WH grounds. Some of ‘em were even snorting’ coke; though my own personal opinion is that it was only one of them bunnies what was not properly vetted…. Gotta keep an eye on them bunnies.)
It is absolutely prima facia evidence of fraud if it can be proved that Biden was somewhere else, like Delaware,
when the pardons were “signed”. Prosecutions to the fullest extent of the law should follow. Consequence must be personal.
@Geoffery Britain:It is absolutely prima facia evidence of fraud if it can be proved that Biden was somewhere else, like Delaware
Presidents don’t have to sign things personally, necessarily. The Constitution only mentions “signing” of bills into law.
If he directed someone to use the autopen doesn’t seem like there’d be a problem, been done going back at least to the LBJ administration.
It’s if someone did it and he didn’t direct them, that’s the issue, and may be hard to prove. Especially if Biden were willing to say that yes he did authorize each and every one of those autopen signatures.
This is too much like Obama’s birth certificate, “erase a Presidency you don’t like with this one weird trick”.
Yes, that’s true, Niketas. The issue has already been litigated in 2005 during the George W. Bush administration. Autopens are as legal as signatures, and there is no mechanism to void a Presidestial pardon once it has been signed.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/mar/17/donald-trump/are-biden-pardons-void-because-he-used-an-autopen/
Moreover, voiding Biden’s pardons would open up a future President voiding Trump’s pardons down the road. That’s not a road any Trumpists should want to explore.