The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project has reported that during former President Joe Biden’s administration, White House staffers used an autopen device to sign clemency warrants and pardons, including those granted to members of the January 6 Committee. The revelation has raised questions about the legitimacy of these actions.
The Oversight Project, which is conducting an ongoing review of public documents containing Biden’s signature, found that staffers used the autopen at least 32 times to sign presidential clemency warrants. In a report posted to social media, the organization stated that “individuals in the Biden Administration other than the President appear to have used a device called an autopen to affix the President’s signature onto some of the most controversial clemency warrants of his Presidency.”
An autopen is a machine commonly used in government offices that allows authorized staffers to reproduce an official’s signature on documents. While legal, its use in signing pardons and clemency orders has sparked constitutional and legal concerns, particularly given Biden’s alleged cognitive decline.
“The Biden Administration’s autopen use raises grave constitutional, legal, and pragmatic questions,” the Oversight Project stated. “How widespread was autopen use in the Biden White House? Given President Biden’s mental and physical decline while in Office, to what extent was he aware of the use of the autopen?”
In response to the report, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social, declaring the Biden-signed pardons void. “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. “In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!”
Currently, there is no law prohibiting a president from using an autopen. However, Trump argued that its use should be limited to minor administrative tasks, stating, “We may use it, as an example, to send some young person a letter because it’s nice … But to sign pardons and all of the things that he signed with an autopen is disgraceful.”
