Trump Declares Biden’s Autopen-Signed Pardons “Void”
17th March 2025
Ten days or so after the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project disclosed that nearly every document bearing former President Biden’s signature during his first term had been signed by an autopen—except for one—questions arose over whether executive orders and pardons could be deemed invalid, as we noted that Biden’s staff likely leveraged his rapid cognitive deterioration to sign those documents via autopen.
This raises some very fundamental questions that I’m afraid will have to be answered by the courts.
Overnight, President Trump declared that the 11th-hour pardons, including those given to members of Congress who investigated the January 6 insurrection, were “void, vacant, and of no further force or effect, because of the fact that they were done by autopen.” Some of those last-minute pardons include Deep Staters, such as former Representative Liz Cheney, retired General Mark Milley, and government scientist Anthony Fauci.
I’m not sure that’s correct. All that needs to happen is for Biden to testify, in open court or by affidavit, that the signature in question is, in fact, his signature for it to be valid, same as with ‘electronically signed’ documents.
Now, if it can be shown that at the time they were ‘autosigned’ he was non compos mentis, and there appears to be a good chance that such can be shown, then that calls the whole shebang into question. Again, the courts are going to have to break some new ground here.
Interesting times….