When You Have to Prove the Air
Proving someone signed a document may seem simple until a machine generates the signature.
In June 2025, President Trump ordered a formal inquiry into a series of executive actions reportedly signed by former President Joe Biden using an autopen. The accusation? That aides, not Biden, authorized key decisions—raising concerns about Biden’s health, authority, and constitutional legitimacy. The reaction from Democrats was swift: mockery, deflection, and condescension. The story, they said, wasn’t real. Like air, you couldn't see it, so it must not exist.
But anyone who's ever been suffocated by bureaucracy knows unseen forces have power. Autopen signatures are authentic. The debate is whether the man whose name was signed had a hand in the act or was even awake.
What Is an Autopen and Who’s Used It?
The autopen is a mechanical device that replicates a handwritten signature, often used when a public official is physically unavailable. It’s not new. Thomas Jefferson reportedly used an early version of it. Eisenhower made it a regular part of the White House. More recently, Barack Obama caught heat in 2011 for using the autopen to sign a bill while overseas, sparking debate over constitutional limits.
The Justice Department settled the legality question in a 2005 opinion: if the president allows the act, it’s valid. The key word is “authorizes.” That means he’s conscious of it, that he intends it. That he is, functionally and legally, the executive. The pen, real or mechanical, must still serve the hand.
So when reports emerged that Biden’s former aides may have used the autopen to sign documents while he rested, napped, or worse, the alarm wasn’t over the pen. It was over the hand.
The Real Questions Behind the Signature
Legally, the autopen is settled by law. However, politically and constitutionally, it is unclear when used without evidence of current, coherent authorization. Biden's critics argue that an autopen signature becomes a forgery when the signer doesn’t know what’s being signed. That's not just poor optics. That’s dereliction.
When ABC News pressed former White House officials on the issue, responses claimed Biden “authorized” the documents. However, no signed memo of authorization was provided. No time-stamped directive. Just an assertion. And assertions, like air, aren’t visible.
President Trump’s team isn’t just grasping at fog. They’re demanding the receipts: who knew what, when, and did the President of the United States approve the use of his name on matters of national importance?
From the Pen to the Puppet?
This controversy doesn’t live in a vacuum. It is the culmination of years of public concern over Joe Biden’s declining cognitive state. Gaffes turned into episodes. Wandering turned into misdirection. Staffers began cutting off reporters mid-question. The Easter Bunny famously had to lead the president away from crowds in 2022. When someone like that signs an order, people naturally ask: “Was he lucid? Was he present?”
When someone like that signs an order, people naturally ask: “Was he lucid? Was he present?”
If aides are directing executive power under the guise of a president’s name, that’s not democracy. That’s a soft coup in real-time. Power without presence is puppetry.
Even Biden allies have started to squirm. Former staffers have quietly acknowledged that Biden didn’t work past 4 p.m., rarely read full briefings, and left policy details to staff. That may have been concealed during his presidency, but in President Trump’s America, it no longer passes the sniff test.
Who Really Holds the Pen?
Let’s draw the distinction. No one disputes that a president can use an autopen. But using it as a regular stand-in for physical and mental absence is a scandal. The public deserves to know that every order signed in the president’s name was backed by his brain, not just his machine.
Imagine if Trump had used an autopen to sign legislation from Mar-a-Lago and claimed he was “spiritually present.” The media would have set up camp outside the White House for a week. Yet Biden signs off on trillions in spending and military aid while possibly napping, and the press shrugs.
It’s not the pen. It’s the pattern.
The Double Standard and the Real Danger
This is the same press that pounced when President Trump drank water with two hands, wore lifts in his shoes, or tweeted after midnight. They called him unstable, erratic, and unfit. But Biden’s invisible presidency? That gets a laugh track.
If we’re serious about constitutional order, we should be concerned about the power wielded through proxies. An autopen is only legitimate when it confirms the will of the commander-in-chief. If the president didn’t read the briefing, didn’t write the note, and didn’t know the decision was being made, then the autopen isn’t an instrument of authority. It’s a rubber stamp for a shadow presidency.
This is not a fringe of fear. It’s a foundational one. The Founders designed a republic where the executive’s will was singular and accountable. That’s why the Constitution doesn’t refer to a committee of presidents or a board of aides. It vests executive power in one man. If that man isn’t conscious of what he’s allowing, then who’s really running the show?
The Political Cost of Pretending
The autopen story might seem obscure. However, it resonates because it taps into something more profound: the fear that the presidency itself has become a façade. That behind the staged press conferences and smiling aides lies a government on autopilot.
And once you run government by ghostwriters and autopens, you no longer have a republic. You have bureaucracy impersonating leadership. Authority impersonating consent.
It’s like feeling wind without knowing where it comes from. It may cool your skin, but it leaves you uneasy.
Full Circle: Proving the Air Exists
So, we return to the analogy: proving the existence of air. You can’t hold it in your hand. But you feel the pressure. You see its impact. You witness its force.
The same is true with presidential authority. We don’t see the moment the president signs a bill. But we live under the consequences. If we cannot confirm the will behind the act, if we’re not allowed to see the process, question the authorizations, or verify the signer, then we’re not witnessing leadership. We’re breathing in government smog and calling it oxygen.
This autopen debate isn’t silly. It’s serious. It asks whether the most powerful man in the world is still holding the pen or if he’s just the excuse for someone else who is.
Biden’s DOJ tried to block state border defenses. President Trump stepped in and restored order.
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