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.
This is too much like Obama’s birth certificate, “erase a Presidency you don’t like with this one weird trick”.
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It’s not like that at all. The controversy over Obama’s birth certificate was driven by his refusal to consent to the publication of his long form certificate. (There was no vigorous reason to believe he’d been born anywhere but in Honolulu bar the publisher’s blurb which identified him as a native of Kenya). Even so, it was of interest only to a modest collection of hobbyists.
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I think it will come as a surprise to most of us that a pardon or any other measure biding on the public could be executed without the President’s physical signature.
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,
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You’ve mischaracterized what this would be. It would not be a revocation of a pardon, but an acknowledgement that no pardon was granted.
Back in January, Speaker Johnson recounted in an interview that he finally secured a meeting in early 2024 with Biden alone to ask him why Biden paused LNG exports. Biden insisted he had not done so. The Speaker thought Biden was not remembering that he signed the order because of Biden’s cognitive decline.
But what if Biden spoke the truth — he didn’t remember because he hadn’t signed the order (or gave authorization to have it signed). Instead, one of his staff created the order pausing LNG exports and signed it using the auto-pen.
@Art Deco:It would not be a revocation of a pardon, but an acknowledgement that no pardon was granted.
I don’t disagree with your correction, but however you call it, I don’t believe it ever happened before, when a later President “acknowledged” that an earlier President’s pardon was never granted, and I don’t think anyone knows what do with that, except perhaps if someone pardoned by Biden is prosecuted for something Biden pardoned him for.
neo, regarding your comments above, the Constitution does not permit Congress (by legislation or otherwise) to impose limits or parameters on the presidential pardon power. As Prof. Volokh explains today, case law indicates that pardons need not be in writing at all–there is nothing in the common law that requires it–so they certainly need not be signed by hand.
It’s now being speculated that Biden aide Neera Tanden was the wielder of the autopen. Her name seemed familiar to me, and I realized she was the failed nomination for head of OMB under Biden, whose nomination tanked after Manchin withdrew his vote. She also brazenly deleted more than 1000 tweets, under the impression people wouldn’t find out? If so, this business with the autopen is similar.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/09/neera-tanden-confirmation-remarks-467833
Tanden went from UCLA to Yale Law School to 28 years of employment in the nexus which surrounds the Democratic Party. She lost the OMB nomination because she made public statements indicating she loathes anyone who might stand in her way, among them…Susan Collins. Such a person should have no influence over anything.
What offences were pardoned? Oh, there weren’t any, no particular charges? No particular cases brought? So no particular offenses to pardon or reprieve?
Huh. Just a wave of the hand against possibilities or potentialities? Funny, it doesn’t say anything about potentialities or possibilities. Just “offences against the United States”. Weird.
Blanket pardons for unspecified acts were common in English practice. The courts have generally construed the Constitutional pardon power as coextensive with the English royal power.
Trump’s pardon of the J6 offenders was notably vague. It certainly didn’t say that it covered drug offenses uncovered in searches during investigations, but the Justice Department and the courts have generally interpreted it that way.
Even assuming that there was a mechanism to invalidate a presidential signature for lack of consent by the president, you need evidence. Short of Biden claiming that he didn’t authorize a signature, it is almost inconceivable that you would find sufficient evidence to prove that any signature was not authorized. Otherwise, you have a “he said, she said” between Biden and/or aides. That’s not going to be enough to prove that a signature was unauthorized.
Trump is trolling.
I do remember some of us agreeing with the notion that Trump could mentally declassify any document without anything announced or put in writing. I don’t say those people are wrong, but they should be consistent.
I agree in principle that if Biden didn’t know these pardons were being signed and he wouldn’t have signed them if he knew about them, they would not be “real” pardons, but what I don’t see is any practical way to act on this. Short of some kind of smoking gun memo or video or some such, or some kind of vehement denial by Biden that he had anything to do with these.
But it seems the cure would be worse than the disease, if anybody pardoned can be prosecuted with the government or a court getting a chance to say it wasn’t a “real” pardon.
I like the theory that the real plan is to keep the autopen story, the pardons and Biden’s mental decline in the news.
I do remember some of us agreeing with the notion that Trump could mentally declassify any document without anything announced or put in writing. I don’t say those people are wrong, but they should be consistent.
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The question at hand was whether the President was so hog-tied by the Archvist’s preferred procedure that he could be subject to criminal prosecution for having the documents in his possession (a liability that somehow did not extend to Mike Pence or Joe Bribem).
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In this case, the question is whether the pardon can be said to exist as anything but a draft absent the president’s actual signature.
huxley – It’s one of two possibilities. Trump is either trolling to keep Biden and the autopen in the news, or he really does operate on the intellectual level of an adolescent.
One problem with Trump – it’s usually one or other other. He’s either playing 10-dimensional chess, or he’s really that un-serious.
@huxley,
Well, if your theory is correct, here’s more evidence: Trump just revoked Secret Service protection for Hunter and Ashley Biden.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/trump-ending-secret-service-protection-bidens-adult-children-119891937
Not “reduced their staff”. Just cut it completely.
As I recall, Trump extended SS protection to his adult children for some period of time after the end of his Presidency, by Executive Order. Is that what Biden did?
It’s one of two possibilities. Trump is either trolling to keep Biden and the autopen in the news, or he really does operate on the intellectual level of an adolescent.
Bauxite:
Frankly, I read the second half of your comment as on par with the intellectual level of an adolescent.
Given Trump’s astonishing comeback in the face of concerted, malicious, powerful attacks over the past ten years, I think we are well past debating Trump’s intellectual level in such demeaning terms.