As more details emerge on former President Joe Biden‘s mental and physical state while in office, President Donald Trump and his allies have seized on the autopen in their attacks on Trump’s predecessor.
Biden, 82, has faced a whirlwind of public scrutiny, with new reporting and books, such as CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson’s Original Sin, suggesting that Biden was not fit to serve a second term — and that his inner circle knew it. Biden has pushed back on those claims, saying: “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
Multiple investigations into Biden and his inner circle are ongoing. Here’s what to know about the autopen, how the controversy started, and where current investigations stand:
What is an autopen, and how long has it been around?
Autopens, devices used to duplicate a person’s signature automatically without their input, have been used for more than 200 years by politicians and other prominent figures. As the name implies, the machine does not produce a stamp or copy of a signature but creates one using an actual pen held by a machine.
The first president to use one was Thomas Jefferson, who began using a rudimentary autopen soon after the device’s invention in 1803. This iteration, developed by British American inventor John Isaac Hawkins, was known as a polygraph and made instant copies of a signature or even entire letters as they were dictated.
A more modern autopen was in use in the days of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and he used it frequently. An authentic Eisenhower signature today can fetch over $400, while an autopenned one is a nice souvenir with little monetary value.
The first president to use an autopen to sign legislation was former President Barack Obama in 2011, when he used one from France to authorize a four-year extension of the Patriot Act, a post-9/11 anti-terrorism law. This move was controversial at the time, with 21 Republican lawmakers signing a letter demanding that Obama re-sign the bill by hand.
Autopen has always been mildly controversial, implying an air of inauthenticity or even laziness on the part of its user. Most presidents who used them were not inclined to talk about it publicly, and the polygraph remained something of a state secret. But historically, the autopen also had strict limits on its use: It was allowed for form letters or other communications but never for high-profile functions such as signing legislation.
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When did the Biden autopen controversy start?
In a March 17 Truth Social post, Trump said Biden’s last-minute clemency grants were “VOID” because they were allegedly signed using an autopen.
Among the recipients were close family members, including Biden’s brothers, James B. Biden and Francis W. Biden, sister-in-law Sara Jones Biden, sister Valerie Biden Owens, and brother-in-law John T. Owens, as well as high-profile political figures such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, and former Jan. 6 committee members Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
Trump suggested the legality of autopen-signed pardons should be decided by the courts, alleging that Biden was unaware of the pardons and suggesting that those who executed them could be guilty of criminal conduct.
Trump’s claims followed a report by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, which alleged that Biden used an autopen to sign “nearly every document we could find” during his presidency.
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How often did Biden use the autopen?
Biden used the autopen to sign official documents far more often, and under more questionable circumstances, than was initially reported.
The former president used at least three different autopen signatures throughout his presidency to authorize executive actions, proclamations, and pardons, including in situations in which he was physically in Washington and actively signing other paperwork by hand, according to revelations from the Oversight Project, a government watchdog formerly part of the Heritage Foundation.
The watchdog has labeled the signatures in question as Autopen A, B, and C. Autopen C, the third and newly discovered version, was used to sign hundreds of proclamations with uniformity, strongly suggesting mechanical reproduction.
This third autopen signature was discovered when Oversight Project researchers were examining Biden’s proclamations in the first months of his presidency. They tracked uniformity in the use of a signature on those written decrees and eventually found that a signature matching Autopen A was also used in one of the president’s declarations.
The development raises new questions about who was wielding presidential authority in Biden’s name — and when.
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What’s the status of an investigation?
Trump signed a June 4 presidential memorandum directing an investigation into Biden and his aides over whether “certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President.”
The investigation will be led by White House counsel David Warrington in coordination with Attorney General Pam Bondi. It will also look at whether Biden’s aides conspired to make false statements about the then-president’s capabilities and to dismiss recorded videos of his cognitive inability as fake.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said in May that his committee was investigating Biden’s use of the autopen to issue controversial last-minute pardons.
As part of its investigation, the committee has lined up dates for interviews with Biden’s aides and has reached out to several more to testify. Comer has even suggested he might subpoena Biden, former first lady Jill Biden, and former chief of staff Ron Klain.
The committee has also subpoenaed Biden’s former doctor, Kevin O’Connor, after he refused to participate in a voluntary interview. But because of medical ethics guidelines and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, experts told the Washington Examiner the GOP-led committee may not extract as many details as they would like from the ordinarily invaluable witness.
Senate Republicans will hold the first full congressional hearing in June to investigate what they say was a coordinated effort to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline and whether anyone else was pulling the strings behind his presidency.
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