Trump just announced that every document Biden signed with an autopen machine – pardons, executive orders, contracts, the whole stack – is “null, void, and of no further force or effect.”
Not through a legal filing. Not through executive action. Through a Truth Social post that reads like a royal decree.
The declaration came Tuesday evening, part of Trump’s escalating campaign against Biden’s use of the mechanical signature device. Trump claims Biden used the autopen for roughly 92% of all documents during his presidency, rendering those actions “illegal” and ripe for termination.
There’s just one problem. The Constitution doesn’t care how a president signs a document.
Discussion
The difference is Biden was not in charge or aware of anything. His staff, his wife and his son took over running the government just to keep everything running. That's why this country went to hell in a hand basket.
Trump has not used the auto pen. He uses his own handwritten signature. Which i think they all should.
Absolutely agree! It's high time we re-evaluate how transparency and accountability are managed in the White House.
I think both Executive Orders and the Auto pen should be eliminated. The autopen is too easily used without permission and the executive orders by-passes Congress.
I agree with the auto pen but for executive orders I dont agree. If a R President gets in and the congress is mostly D how is anything ever going to get done. Especially the way the Dr's are always voting down on everything our now President does. Even if its good they vote it down because of TDS.
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What the Pardon Clause Actually Says
Article II, Section 2 gives the president power “to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”
That’s it. No signature requirements. No authenticity standards. No mechanism for a successor to review and reverse.
The Framers made presidential pardons essentially bulletproof by design. Once granted, they’re irrevocable – even by the president who issued them. The idea that a new president could retroactively cancel a predecessor’s pardons based on how the ink got on the paper has no constitutional foundation.
Ed Wheelan, distinguished senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, put it plainly on X last week: Trump has no authority to undo Biden’s pardons, bills enacted by Congress, or other measures authorized via autopen.
The Autopen Isn’t the Scandal Trump Thinks It Is
Trump’s framing treats the autopen like some forbidden technology Biden smuggled into the Oval Office. In reality, presidents have used mechanical signature devices for decades.
Eisenhower used one. Reagan used one. Obama used one to sign a bill extending Patriot Act provisions while he was traveling in Europe in 2011.
Trump himself admitted in March that he used the autopen during his first term, though he claimed it was only for “very unimportant papers.” That qualifier is doing a lot of rhetorical work – the Constitution doesn’t recognize a category of “unimportant” presidential documents that require authentic signatures versus “important” ones that don’t.
Biden confirmed in July that he approved autopen use at the end of his presidency for widespread clemency grants and pardons.
His defense was simple: “I made every decision.”
High-ranking Biden officials criticized the practice, but the key constitutional question isn’t whether the signature was physically written by the president’s hand – it’s whether the president authorized the action.
When a Social Media Post Becomes Presidential Policy
Trump’s Tuesday declaration is his second attempt at this gambit. He posted a similar message last week, and the White House has now replaced Biden’s portrait in the “Presidential Walk of Fame” with a photo of the autopen machine flanked by two Trump portraits.
The visual trolling is effective. The legal strategy is nonexistent.
The White House hasn’t responded to requests for comment on whether Trump plans actual legal action. Attorney General Pam Bondi said her office was reviewing Biden’s autopen use for late-stage pardons, but “reviewing” and “we can reverse these” are very different positions.
Trump’s late-night posting spree Monday included sharing a screenshot from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones baselessly accusing Michelle Obama of using Biden’s autopen in his final days. The claim has no evidence behind it, but it signals where this narrative is heading – not toward courtrooms, but toward the conspiratorial fringes where legal constraints don’t apply.
The Precedent That Can’t Exist
If Trump’s theory held water, every future president could review their predecessor’s entire body of work and declare anything “improperly signed” retroactively void.
Bills passed by Congress? Void if the president was traveling when they used the autopen. Treaties? Void if a staffer positioned the machine. Pardons granted to hundreds of people? Void because the successor doesn’t like the pen that was used.
The chaos would be constitutional. More importantly, it would obliterate the finality that makes executive actions meaningful in the first place.
Presidential power derives from the office, not from the specific muscle contractions required to form cursive letters. The autopen executes the president’s will – quite literally. If the president authorized the signature, the signature is valid.
What Happens Next
Trump has three options. He can pursue this through the courts and lose spectacularly when judges explain that signature method isn’t a basis for voiding presidential actions. He can issue an executive order attempting to formalize his Truth Social decree and watch it get immediately challenged and blocked. Or he can let this remain what it currently is – political theater designed to delegitimize Biden’s final acts without actually having to prove anything in court.
The smart money is on option three. Trump gets to rage against the autopen, signal to his base that Biden’s pardons are illegitimate, and avoid the legal humiliation that would come from actually testing this theory before a judge.
But for everyone who received a Biden pardon via autopen? The Constitution is clear. Those pardons stand. Not because of how they were signed, but because a sitting president had the authority to grant them.
Trump can declare them void on social media all he wants. The Pardon Clause doesn’t have a Truth Social exception.
If Trump used the autopen too, how are Biden's actions any different or illegal?