Biden the ‘Auto’crat? Trump’s Autopen Allegations

March 24th, 2025

Brogan Jones

There are few jobs in the world where a single stroke of your pen could affect the very future of humanity. That ability is seldom handed out to baristas, middle school gym teachers, or grocery store cashiers. It’s a power typically only reserved for prime ministers, monarchs, and occasionally the rogue mailman. However, the likely wielder of the most powerful pen in the world is the President of the United States. But what happens when that pen is unconventional, and suddenly becomes the center of a signature scandal?

An autopen is the name given to a machine capable of duplicating signatures using real ink. The pen was created to make it convenient for public figures to easily write their signature multiple times. While often used by celebrities, the machine recently became the center of controversy when President Trump claimed Joe Biden's pardons were "void" because they were signed with an autopen. Specifically, Trump took to Truth Social to write that “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”. The Presidential pardon is a power unique to the President, one that represents legal forgiveness, ends any further punishment, and returns rights such as being able to vote or run for public office. Though President Biden issued many pardons throughout his presidency, the ones that Trump is claiming as faulty were issued near the end of Biden’s term. Among them was a rarely-seen preemptive pardon, the same one Trump referenced in his post on Truth Social, which the then-President issued to all members of the congressional committee formed to investigate the January 6th attack on the capitol.

While the allegation doesn’t immediately sound as far-fetched as some of Donald Trump’s other claims, experts have already begun to cast doubt on how factual Donald Trump’s accusation actually is. Jeffrey Crouch, a professor of politics at American University, said he doubted that Trump's characterization of the pardons as "void" would have any legal effect. Another report, which labeled Trump's claim as entirely false and without any basis in fact, noted that White House lawyers during the George W. Bush administration said the use of an autopen is perfectly legal, and constitutional scholars say that nothing in the Constitution even requires pardons to be signed anyway, nor can pardons simply be overturned by the subsequent President. Furthermore, presidents have been using autopens for decades and Trump himself admitted to using an autopen, but only on "unimportant papers". Regardless of Donald Trump’s personal view on autopen signatures when it comes to important documents, precedent and fact seem to be against his claim that the practice is unconstitutional.

While it doesn’t seem like Trump will be able to successfully overturn Biden’s pardons this time, it does raise an important discussion. With one individual wielding a power that affects all of humanity, how that power is administered can be very important, and even the tiniest of details being awry can have dire consequences. Especially since Trump threatened to go after his political enemies while campaigning last year, if those pardons had been overturned due to something as small as what kind of pen they were signed with, the result could have been an unparalleled level of political persecution and authoritarian-level repression being committed by our nation’s highest arbiter of the law. Hopefully, the debacle engrains an important message into all government employees and Presidential hopefuls: the specifics are always important.