President Donald Trump announced that any document former President Joe Biden signed using the autopen has been “hereby terminated.” The Trump administration has repeatedly criticized the previous administration’s reliance on the device, which applies a signature to documents without the president physically signing them.
Biden has rejected those allegations and said he was personally responsible for every pardon issued in the final days of his presidency.
“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,” Trump wrote.
“The Autopen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the President of the United States. 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. Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury.”
Presidents are believed to have used versions of the autopen for more than 200 years, dating back to Thomas Jefferson, who obtained one after it was patented in 1803, according to the Shapell Manuscript Foundation.
Gerald Ford, Lyndon B. Johnson, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama are all known to have used the device.
Obama became the first president to use an autopen to sign legislation in 2011.
In 2005, during the Bush administration, the Justice Department concluded the autopen is legal.
“A person may sign a document by directing that his signature be affixed to it by another,” a DOJ memo said. Legal scholars have also noted that the Constitution does not require presidents to personally sign pardons.
Trump made similar allegations about Biden’s autopen use in June, at which time he called for an investigation.
On Oct. 28, the Republican led House Oversight Committee recommended the Justice Department investigate the issue.
The White House responded to questions about how Biden’s orders could be “terminated” by referring back to Trump’s Truth Social post.
Trump told reporters in March that he has used the autopen “only for very unimportant papers.”
“You know, we get thousands and thousands of letters, letters of support for young people, from people that aren’t feeling well, etcetera,” Trump said.
“But to sign pardons and all of the things that he signed with an autopen is disgraceful.”
In a July interview with The New York Times, Biden said Republicans are “liars” for claiming he was unaware of his own White House actions that were signed using the autopen.
“I made every decision,” Biden said.
President Trump announced Thursday that he plans to temporarily halt immigration from third-world countries following the shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. In a post on Truth Social, the president said the nation has advanced technologically but “Immigration Policy has eroded those gains and living conditions for many,” RedState reported.
He wrote that he will “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
