US President Donald Trump on Friday (November 28) announced that all executive orders passed under his predecessor, President Joe Biden, using an “autopen” will be declared null and void.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump claimed that approximately 92 per cent of the orders passed by Biden were done using the autopen and hence “are hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect”. He also said that Joe Biden was not involved in the process, and “if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury”.
Here is a look at what an autopen is, and if it has been used before by any US President.
What is an autopen?
An automatic pen, also known as an autopen, is a machine that uses a real pen to copy a person’s actual signature.
There are no federal statutes that prohibit the use of the device. In 2005, responding to a query about whether a US President may sign a Bill by directing that his signature be affixed to it, the Department of Justice (DoJ) responded, saying that the President may sign a Bill by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a Bill, for example, by autopen under Article I, Section 7.
The memorandum, however, clarified that the approval process still lies with the President. The autopen is only used to replicate the signature after the President approves the Bill.
“We emphasize that we are not suggesting that the President may delegate the decision to approve and sign a bill, only that, having made this decision, he may direct a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to the bill,” the DoJ memorandum read.
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What do we know of Biden’s use of the autopen?
This is not the first time Biden’s name has been attached to the use of the autopen. A report released by the House Oversight Committee in October, under its Republican chairman, James Comer, claims that senior Biden White House officials possibly exercised the authority of the former President or intentionally concealed Biden’s rapidly worsening mental and physical state.
The report says that “while President Biden became progressively less able to do his job, White House staff took shortcuts and ad hoc actions to keep the Biden presidency afloat.” It added, “that there is no record demonstrating President Biden himself made all of the executive decisions that were attributed to him.”
The report calls the Biden Autopen Presidency “the greatest scandals in U.S. history,” where his staff abused the autopen and a lax chain-of-command policy to effect executive actions that lack any documentation of whether they were in fact authorised.
In his post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump made claims on similar lines. He said, “The Radical Left Lunatics circling Biden around the beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office took the Presidency away from him.”
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However, in an interview with The New York Times in July, Biden said that he had orally granted all the pardons and commutations issued at the end of his term, calling President Trump and other Republicans “liars” for claiming his aides had used an autopen to do so without his authorisation.
Why does Trump keep bringing this up?
Among other things that Trump has said targeting Biden, the use of the autopen has been Trump’s favourite. Earlier this year, the President hung a photo of an autopen instead of Biden in the White House’s new presidential gallery. The image, framed in a copper frame, shows an autopen replicating Biden’s signature.
The autopen claim has also been heavily pushed by the Heritage Foundation, a pro-Trump rightwing thinktank, claiming “whoever controlled the autopen controlled the presidency.” However, the report did not include any evidence that Biden’s aides conspired to implement policies without his approval.
Trump also had claimed that the orders signed by Biden were “void, vacant and of no further force and effect”.
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“In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!” he wrote in a post on Truth Social in March.
Can Trump actually revoke executive orders?
Though Presidents are legally allowed to reverse executive orders signed by their predecessors, the President does not have the authority to overturn his predecessor’s pardons, according to American legal scholars, reported The Guardian. However, it remains unclear how Trump plans to undo the major decisions taken in Biden’s administration.
Have other Presidents used it?
The first use of an autopen dates back to the third President, Thomas Jefferson. It was then called the “polygraph”. When he discovered the device, he purchased two of them: one for the White House, another for his home, Monticello.
Other Presidents include John F Kennedy as well as Barack Obama, who used the device to sign various legislation, including the Patriot Act and an appropriations Bill, while overseas.
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In March, Trump said he had also used the autopen for what he described as “very unimportant papers”.
