President Trump dropped a political hammer on Friday, announcing that he is moving to void every executive order and official document signed by Joe Biden using an autopen. And according to Trump, that was basically all of them. In his Truth Social post, he said, “Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92 percent of them, is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect.” Only Trump can deliver news like that with the subtlety of a freight train.
He explained his reasoning with the same bluntness. The autopen is only allowed when the president personally authorizes its use. Trump argued that Biden was not in the loop and that Biden’s aides were the ones cranking out signatures while dragging him around the Resolute Desk like a prop. Trump added that if Biden claims he approved the autopen process, he should face perjury charges. It’s classic Trump, straightforward and unapologetic.
The bigger issue here is not the device itself. It’s what the heavy reliance on it suggests. For years, the country watched Biden stumble through speeches, forget where he was and wander off mid event. Meanwhile his staff insisted everything was fine. But behind the scenes, congressional investigators and the Trump Administration have been piecing together a very different picture. Fox News reported months ago that investigators are reviewing more than a million documents from the Biden presidency to determine how often the autopen was used and whether aides were effectively acting as president in his place.
Officials have stressed that oversight of the president’s signature is critical because it carries enormous legal weight. If that signature is coming from a machine run by staffers rather than the president himself, that opens the door to a serious legitimacy problem. And according to the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, every document with Biden’s signature except his dropout letter from the 2024 race appears autopen generated. If that holds up, it’s not a paperwork quirk. It’s a constitutional crisis.
The tail end of Biden’s presidency only added fuel to the fire. He issued a wave of preemptive pardons for Anthony Fauci, members of the January 6 Committee and General Mark Milley. He claimed they needed protection from future political targeting. The truth is those pardons shielded powerful allies who faced real accusations and didn’t want scrutiny.
Trump’s move to wipe out autopen signed orders is going to trigger a massive fight in Washington. But it also forces the country to confront a question many already knew the answer to. If Biden wasn’t signing his own documents, who exactly was running the White House?
Leave a Comment