President Trump claimed Friday that he was repealing all documents signed by former President Joe Biden using an autopen — and threatened to have his predecessor “brought up on charges of perjury” if he asserts that staffers were acting on his orders when using the mechanical.
Trump, 79, has for months characterized Biden, 83, as AWOL during his four-year term and claimed that unelected aides were running the country without authorization.
“Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect. The Autopen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the President of the United States,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“The Radical Left Lunatics circling Biden around the beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office took the Presidency away from him. I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally.”
Trump added: “Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The president already has repealed many of Biden’s executive orders and suggested that many of his pardons are invalid, though Biden told the New York Times in an interview this year he authorized the use of his name for controversial last-minute pardons.
Auto-penned signatures carry full legal force so long as aides were operating under the directive of the president and have been used by chief executives for decades, including for everything from routine proclamations and constituent letters to — in rare cases — actual legislation.
A 2005 analysis by the George W. Bush administration’s Justice Department determined that “the President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law.”
“Rather,” that Office of Legal Counsel assessment found, “the President may sign a bill within the meaning of Article I, Section 7 [of the Constitution] by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.
A House Republican-led investigation this year of the autopen’s use under Biden produced no direct evidence that aides acted without presidential approval, but generated circumstantial evidence that he rarely interacted with many key West Wing officials.
Internal emails showed some record of documents being authorized for signature, but also concern among subordinates about how to implement orally communicated instructions on end-of-term clemency actions.
A Biden spokeswoman declined to comment.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer praised Trump’s declaration, though it’s unclear how exactly individual documents or clemency grants may be impacted by the blanket instruction.
“I applaud President Trump for deeming President Biden’s autopen actions null and void,” Comer said.
“As Americans witnessed President Biden’s decline with their own eyes, Biden’s inner circle sought to deceive the public, conceal his condition, and take unauthorized executive actions using the autopen—actions that are now invalid.”
