The autopen: in Biden’s name only
Biden’s aides signed a great many of his EOs with an autopen. Some – such as his pardons of the J6 committee members – Biden referred to himself when speaking, so we can assume that he was at least aware of those and approved of them to the extent he could understand them. But there were other EOs that Biden never spoke about publicly. Did he realize they were issued?
A group has done some research on that and raised the alarm:
The executive orders reviewed by Power the Future include an Arctic drilling ban in 2023, a 2021 executive order committing the federal government to net-zero emissions by 2050, an executive order mandating “clean energy” AI centers and an offshore drilling ban executive order shortly before leaving office in 2025.
Finding no evidence of Biden publicly speaking about the executive orders on climate, Power the Future sent letters this week to the DOJ, EPA, DOI, DOE, along with the House and Senate Oversight Committees, calling for an investigation to determine who made the decisions, drafted the executive orders and ultimately signed them.
Will we ever know? The Biden of yesteryear wasn’t known for sterling judgment. But he also wasn’t known for leftist ideology, so his leftward turn as president is suspicious. How much of that was outside his awareness?
Note, however, that prior to Biden’s presidency he was Obama’s VP, and at that point he was cognitively intact, healthwise. I don’t recall him objecting to anything Obama did, however leftist it was. He was Obama’s willing helper. Therefore he’d already compromised his previous pre-Obama positions to a large extent.
Be interesting to see how this gets to court, under what legal issues, what evidene counts, so forth. And then what kind of a verdict is possible. And what that verdict requires of what’s gone before….
After Biden’s election in 2020, Rep, Jayapal was telling people that she and others on the far left felt they could push Biden around. She didn’t use that exact phrase, because that would give the game away. But they knew he was enfeebled mentally and had no problem with using that to their advantage.
It’s probably been done, but one could cross reference the dates of the autopen signatures with the dates when Biden was out of the White House. That would give you a starting point on figuring out who was making illegal decisions.
According to ChatGPT:
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So while autopen use is legal in principle, the entire system relies on trust—that the president has personally and knowingly authorized each instance. There is no formal safeguard that prevents staff from misusing it without his knowledge unless they’re caught and held to account.
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Sounds accurate to me.
Republicans are right to make a stink about this, but there will be no legal recourse on Biden autopens.
However, it is clearly necessary to add a legal layer of safeguards to autopen usage.
@neo: I don’t recall [Biden] objecting to anything Obama did, however leftist it was. He was Obama’s willing helper. Therefore he’d already compromised his previous pre-Obama positions to a large extent.
Quite.
In my mental model of Biden as President, he was trying to out-Obama Obama. We know Joe was a vindictive and vainglorious man.
I remember when Biden jumped the bun to endorse gay marriage in 2012. Obama was forced to do so three days later.
Sgt Joe Friday– the commieKKKrats are all about wielding Power POWER Power.
And because they maximal utopians, Truth is their enemy.
EXPOSE IT ALL!
Sorry, there are no centrist Democrats. They lie to advance their careers and power. When they think no one can stop them, their real nature comes out. Remember those centrist Dems, Clinton & Gore? Remember pro-life Dick Gephardt?
I cannot see how any act run though an autopen machine by an aide could or should be legally binding. Dismantle the bloody autopen. It has no legitimate use.
Re: Autopen history
Like most bad recent things it goes back to Barack Obama.
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As the news broke on Friday [May, 2011] that President Obama signed the Patriot Act extension from France via autopen, you could almost hear thousands of Americans asking in unison, “What’s an autopen?”
Well, it’s a device that’s often used by rock stars or sports heroes and yes, the president of the United States, usually to sign letters. This is the first time we know of that an autopen has signed a bill into law…
https://www.npr.org/2011/05/27/136717719/obama-wields-his-autopen
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According to NPR previous presidents considered the autopen but … :
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President Clinton was in Turkey when a bill funding the government had to be signed, and President Reagan was in a similar situation while in China. In both cases, the Justice Department decided it was safer to fly the bill halfway around the world, rather than sign it with an autopen.
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As far as I can tell, Biden is the first president to use the autopen for Executive Orders and he (or his cabal) did so on a wholesale level.
“the Justice Department decided it was safer to fly the bill halfway around the world, rather than sign it with an autopen.”
Note that the Constitution does explicitly require the President to sign bills. Not sure if it is a strictly legal requirement for pardons and EOs, though that does not address the fundamental question of whether Biden actually knew of or agreed with the actions signed by the autopen.
Note that the Constitution does explicitly require the President to sign bills.
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It does not mention quill and ink. Kinda twee to insist that it should.
With Brandon they really needed the AutoCrayola.
Signatures are convention. Trump does his approvals in front of cameras. There is no doubt he is issuing the EO. He seems to be going out of his way to do so. This makes me think he might have a strategy for invalidating some of this crap.
When we sold our house recently, a notary came out to our little town to get our signatures.
The first comment here gets it:
Richard Aubrey on May 28, 2025 at 4:52 pm said:
Be interesting to see how this gets to court, under what legal issues, what evidene counts, so forth. And then what kind of a verdict is possible. And what that verdict requires of what’s gone before….
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We are now ruled by judges, and will continue to be unless Congress does something about it, which they won’t. (At this point Congress is pointless.)
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2025/05/29/wtf-4049/
Sorry. Got timed out.
The above link is:
“…David Hogg says Jill Biden’s Chief of Staff Anthony Bernal secretly ran the Biden White House in bombshell footage filmed by Project “
Next question: Should anyone believe what David Hogg claims?
“It does not mention quill and ink”
“Sign” had a very definite meaning in 1787. To suggest it might include a “virtual” signature is or should be at least a constitutional question which is why I suspect “twee” Clinton and Reagan had bills flown around the world to them to sign.
Biden’s supposed “moderation,” as if he thoughtfully formulated independent policy positions, is a myth. People seem to assume that because he had been in national politics forever and was white and male he was somehow more “moderate” than the Democratic Party as a whole. Baloney. He was ideologically wherever it was safest (and most conducive to donations) to be for an East Coast Democrat. As that standard position moved to the left, Biden followed it. Of course he wasn’t a socialist (he was always ready to be of service to Delaware’s credit card industry, as well as the Teamsters), but neither is AOC, regardless of her rhetoric.
Aside from his purely performative opposition to court ordered school bussing back in the 70s (when that was a big issue for white working class Democrats), I can’t think of any issue where he was more “moderate” than East Coast Democrats in general.
“Sign” had a very definite meaning in 1787. To suggest it might include a “virtual” signature is or should be at least a constitutional question which is why I suspect “twee” Clinton and Reagan had bills flown around the world to them to sign.
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Is it your contention that Biden does not have to sign anything for it to be enacted or that he does?
the odds they would give david hogg the time of day, seems unlikely, he would only know who was the disbursement officer that signed his check,
yes biden was an ally of segregationists to be charitable the liks of James Eastland a Soviet tool in the late 80s and early 90s, he only inadvertently got things right like the Drug Czar legislation (small irony) the Violence against Women Act,
that set up Kangaroo tribunals, was rightly dismissed by the Supreme Court,
My contention is yes he has to sign Congressional legislation but not necessarily EOs and pardons. I would have figured my position was obvious to anyone who can read.
Chases Eagles on May 29, 2025 at 9:34 am:
“Signatures are convention. … a notary came out to our little town to get our signatures.”
Are we giving up some liberty and security for convenience? But social norms and conventions do carry a great weight in most successful trust oriented societies.
1) Signatures also carry a cultural relationship to verbal oaths (I think, anyway)
2) My signature is changing somewhat as I get older, due to hand/finger arthritis and impatience with writing in more clearly as I did before. I may go in and re-do my voter registration card for this reason.
3) Every time I “sign” one of those “electronic pads” in the bank, the restaurant, the pharmacy, etc., with my finger, I keep wondering “just how can this really stand up in court vs. my normal pen on paper signature. It bears almost no relationship to the normal one, beyond a couple of largish initial letters. And often the “pad space” is smaller than I need to complete it fully, so the end is just a scrawl.
3.1) It is somewhat better when a stylus is available, but not all that much
4) I now also commonly use an auto-signature virtual signing software to authorize selected financial actions. I am most familiar with “DocuSign” but I presume there are others. You select a “font” with your legal name spelled out and the SW inserts it into the “signature field”.
4.1) Presumably the legal thinking and related authentication/ authorization activities make this a viable alternative to faxing of signed paper documents. Very convenient when you are comfortable with the folks helping perform those financial actions.
I think that I would start by indicting someone purportedly pardoned by Biden. Fauci might be a good one, for perjury and Obstruction of Justice. Defendant raises the pardon as a defense. Prosecution (DOJ) replies that that wasn’t his signature, but was rather an Autopen facsimile. Then, if necessary, shows a number of identical Autopen signatures, and maybe even an Autopen signing it. Or, maybe even better, the judge’s signature. D then points out that Autopen signatures can be valid. P replies that in order to be valid, they require consent of the purported signer. Where is external corroboration that Biden consented to the signature? Phone records? Email? Could Biden, at the time, reasonably be considered competent to consent? Introduce into evidence Tapper’s new book. Etc. Evidence that Biden said earlier that he wouldn’t make that type of pardon would be a plus.
The key, to this strategy, is to put the burden of proving the Autopen signatures was valid on the other party. In the case of pardons, they are an affirmative defense, and the Defendant has the burden of proving that they were pardoned. Then use the pardon decision as precedent for more assertive cases.