Politics
NEW: Trump Claims Biden’s Executive Orders Are ‘Void’ After Autopen Bombshell
Many or all of the last-minute pardons granted by former President Joe Biden have no authority because his autopen was used on every document while there is no evidence that he was aware and permitted their execution, President Donald Trump asserted early Monday morning.
In the past week, explosive reports have indicated that President Biden rarely, if ever, fashioned pardons with his own signature, raising questions about to what extent he was involved in deliberating the merits of each. He ignominiously pardoned his embattled son Hunter in December and, during the final hours of his presidency, bestowed pardons on members of his family, former congresswoman Liz Cheney, and her colleagues on the bipartisan select committee that accused President Trump of stoking the riots on January 6th, 2021.
Trump declared that he would retroactively nullify Biden’s pardons signed with an autopen.
“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. “In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime.”
Cheney and other committee members, Trump warned, “should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level.”
An autopen is an electromechanical device designed to replicate a person’s signature with precision. It can be used by high-ranking officials, including U.S. presidents, to sign large volumes of documents without requiring their direct involvement. While it is legally recognized in certain cases, its use in signing critical legal documents—especially without clear oversight—has prompted questions about authenticity and accountability.
According to a report this month from the Oversight Project, an arm of the Heritage Foundation, every document bearing Biden’s signature—except for the letter announcing his withdrawal from the 2024 race—appears to have been signed by an autopen. The findings have put a spotlight on Biden’s cognitive state and whether unelected officials were making decisions on his behalf.
Concerns about Biden’s extensive use of his autopen began to surface in January when U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told a story about confronting the Democrat over an executive order he denied issuing.
Shortly afterward, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey urged the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate whether aides to former President Biden concealed his cognitive decline to push a far-left agenda. In a public letter, Bailey asserted that much of Biden’s final policies are “legally void” and that staffers may have exploited his condition to issue orders without his knowing approval.
Bailey cites an interview by Johnson in which he states that Biden “did not know what orders he was signing.” The revelation occurred when Johnson met with the former president to discuss an executive order he signed limiting liquified natural gas imports, which proved devastating to the economy of Louisiana.
“I didn’t do that,” Biden is alleged to have told Johnson, who said he left the meeting with the feeling that the country was in “serious trouble.”