Earlier this month, we reported that nearly every document Joe Biden signed during his presidency was signed by an autopen, raising serious concerns about who was truly authorizing executive actions. It’s not exactly a secret that Joe Biden is cognitively impaired and was so during his disastrous presidency, so this revelation begs the question of whether Joe Biden was aware of official documents that the autopen had signed or if they even had been authorized.
The media largely ignored the scandal until Sunday night when Trump weighed in, declaring Biden’s autopen-signed pardons “VOID, VACANT, AND NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT,” arguing that not only did Biden not sign them himself, but he “did not know anything about them!”
Finally, after Trump made this move, the media started talking about this scandal. A lot. And that's a good thing.
As I’ve noted in previous coverage, the use of an autopen in presidential actions isn’t unprecedented. The autopen has been used since the 1950s and was deemed legally acceptable under a Bush-era memo. The key issue with Biden is whether he approved its use — or if someone else was running the show without his knowledge.
So far, all we have is conflicting accounts of former Biden White House aides. Some told the New York Post that a key aide may have been making unilateral decisions, and others dispute that.
As I’ve said before, that’s probably going to be tough to prove.
Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley agrees.
“Many are suggesting that the Biden pardons may now be challenged in light of the disclosures of Biden's use of an autopen. The chances of such challenges succeeding are vanishingly low. Presidents are allowed to use the autopen and courts will not presume a dead-hand conspiracy,” Turley said in a thread on X. “Many of these were high-profile pardons, including for his own son, that Biden acknowledged publicly. There is also a problem with standing unless the issue comes up in a government effort to indict a recipient. That does not mean that the disclosures are not deeply troubling.”
Related: Biden’s Autopen Scandal Just Got a Whole Lot Worse
“The account of Speaker Johnson on how Biden seemed unaware of signing a major piece of legislation does suggest the use of a dead-hand power by staffers. In the end, this is the most difficult type of allegation to pursue since the key parties will be unified in claiming full knowledge and approval by the president,” Turley continued. “For all of these reasons, this dog will not hunt. It may be worthy of investigation by Congress, but the pardons are unlikely to be seriously questioned by the courts.”
Does that mean this isn’t worth pursuing? Heck no. I suspect that Trump knows that it will be nearly impossible to prove that Biden was unaware of the pardons that were signed by autopen. But when you look at how little the media were writing about this scandal a week ago compared to now, Trump has succeeded in bringing it into the national discussion. A congressional investigation is certainly warranted here. I want to see staffers testify, and I want this story to stay alive as long as possible.
