President Donald Trump on Friday, November 28, 2025, announced that he is canceling a broad swath of actions taken during the Biden administration, declaring that any executive orders and other documents allegedly signed with an Autopen rather than by former President Joe Biden himself are now void. In a message posted on Truth Social, Trump said he is terminating “all documents” he claims were executed using the mechanical signature device, escalating a simmering fight over how presidential authority was exercised in the previous administration.
In the Truth Social post, Trump asserted that 92% of documents signed during Biden’s presidency were executed with the Autopen. He framed the move as a sweeping correction of what he described as unlawful conduct in the previous White House. Trump stated:
“The Autopen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the President of the United States,”
and accused Biden’s advisors of illegally operating the device. He went further, declaring that he is canceling all executive orders and “anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally.” Trump also threatened to pursue criminal exposure for his predecessor, saying he would charge Biden with perjury if the former president claims he was involved in the autopen process.
Trump’s announcement instantly raised questions about the legal status of potentially hundreds of executive orders and other presidential actions issued between 2021 and 2025, including pardons and commutations. While presidents have long relied on staff and mechanical aids to handle the sheer volume of paperwork coming through the Oval Office, Trump’s claim that documents signed with the Autopen are invalid sets up a direct clash over what counts as a lawful exercise of presidential authority. It also turns an obscure piece of office equipment into the center of a high‑stakes political and legal dispute.
The Autopen itself is a mechanical signature device that has been used by presidents for over 200 years to replicate signatures on documents, correspondence, and photographs. The core of the current controversy is not the existence of the device but how it was allegedly used. Critics of the Biden administration argue that Biden’s staff went beyond routine use on ceremonial or low‑stakes items and instead used the Autopen to sign legally binding documents—including executive orders and presidential pardons—without Biden’s direct authorization or presence.
Those allegations were laid out in detail in a late October 2025 staff report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Representative James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky. The report, titled “The Biden Autopen Presidency: Decline, Delusion, and Deception in the White House,” concluded that Biden’s top advisors exercised presidential authority and facilitated executive actions without his direct authorization, including what it called misuse of the Autopen. Coming just weeks before Trump’s Truth Social declaration, the report provided the political and rhetorical foundation for Friday’s move.
According to the committee’s staff report, investigators found what they described as substantial evidence that President Biden experienced significant mental and physical decline during his presidency, and that senior White House officials actively sought to conceal his deterioration from the public. The report said this alleged decline formed the backdrop for aides stepping in to direct or execute official acts, including the use of the Autopen. It focused particular attention on the final days of the Biden presidency, identifying irregularities in the issuance of pardons and commutations, including those involving members of the Biden family, where the Autopen was reportedly used without confirmed presidential authorization or proper documentation.
The Oversight Committee report did not simply criticize the prior White House; it also named specific aides it said should face further scrutiny. Chairman Comer sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi requesting that the Department of Justice conduct a comprehensive review of all executive actions taken during the Biden presidency. In that letter, Comer urged the department to scrutinize the roles of Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Annie Tomasini, and Anthony Bernal, three key Biden aides who, according to the committee, invoked the Fifth Amendment during the investigation. The committee portrayed those invocations as part of what it called a broader effort to shield the true extent of Biden’s involvement in official acts and the Autopen’s use.
At the same time, Comer directed pressure at Biden’s longtime physician. He sent a separate letter to the District of Columbia Board of Medicine asking it to review actions taken by Dr. O’Connor to determine any potential wrongdoing in his medical care of the former president. By involving both federal prosecutors and a medical licensing authority, the Oversight chairman signaled that he sees the Autopen controversy not only as a question of constitutional procedure but also as a matter of public integrity and professional ethics.
Republicans in Congress have already begun translating the uproar into proposed law. Representative Buddy Carter introduced the Signature Integrity for Granting National Pardons, or SIGN Pardons, Act, legislation designed to sharply limit how the Autopen can be used in the future. The bill would permanently ban the use of Autopens for signing presidential pardons, requiring that all presidents physically sign such documents for them to be considered valid. If enacted, the measure would set a clear statutory line for one of the most sensitive presidential powers, while implicitly rebuking the Biden administration’s alleged reliance on mechanical signatures.
Yet even with Trump’s move to cancel executive orders and other directives he says were not personally signed by Biden, a basic practical question hangs over the entire effort: how to tell which signature is which. A significant unresolved issue is who will validate the signatures on documents to determine which were actually signed by Biden himself versus by Autopen. Without a clear process or designated authority to authenticate signatures, the declaration that certain actions are void risks plunging agencies, courts, and recipients of past decisions into uncertainty, from regulatory directives to pardons already granted.
To address that gap, the Trump administration has launched its own probe into whether Biden’s former White House aides contributed to what it describes as a cover‑up of his decline and authorized illicit use of the Autopen. Officials have begun examining records and testimony gathered during the House Oversight investigation, looking in particular at instances where the device was used for formal executive actions. The renewed focus by the executive branch mirrors the political clash in Congress and increases the pressure on those who served in senior roles during the Biden years.
Biden, for his part, has firmly rejected the accusations. He has strenuously denied he was unaware of his administration’s actions, calling such claims “ridiculous and false.” His allies argue that the attack on the Autopen is simply a new front in a continuing partisan battle. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have denounced the probe as a distraction and a waste of time, and a Biden spokesperson has said it was an investigation into baseless claims that proved there was no conspiracy or cover‑up. Their response frames the fight as less about procedural niceties and more about efforts to rewrite the legacy of Biden’s time in office.
The clash over Autopen‑signed executive orders sits at the intersection of legal interpretation, institutional habit, and partisan rivalry. For decades, the use of mechanical or delegated signatures on routine or time‑sensitive paperwork has been treated inside government as an administrative tool rather than a constitutional crisis. Trump’s decision to declare that “anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden” is invalid challenges that informal understanding and may ripple through agencies that have been operating on the basis of those documents for years.
For civil servants and lawyers inside government, the question is not abstract. If certain executive orders or directives are now deemed void, agencies may have to reassess policies, guidance, or regulatory actions that traced back to those documents. Recipients of pardons or commutations executed in Biden’s final days, particularly those noted in the Oversight report as involving Biden family members and signed by Autopen, may be left wondering whether their legal status could be revisited. The extent of this uncertainty will depend heavily on how many documents are ultimately judged to be improperly signed and whether courts accept the premise that use of the Autopen, under the circumstances alleged, invalidated them.
The dispute also highlights how modern presidencies rely on tools and processes that are only loosely defined in law. While the Constitution sets out that executive power rests with the president, it does not spell out whether a machine‑generated signature, used with the president’s approval, suffices for all purposes. Existing practice and internal legal opinions have filled that gap in day‑to-day governance. Trump’s public rejection of that practice in the context of Biden’s term could force lawmakers and courts to confront questions that had previously been handled quietly within the executive branch.
As the investigation widens and legislation like the SIGN Pardons Act moves through Congress, the Autopen—once a niche device for handling stacks of correspondence—is now at the heart of a fierce dispute over who really wielded power in the last administration and how far a new president can go in undoing his predecessor’s acts. For members of the public trying to follow which rules still apply, official records of presidential actions, such as the White House archive of executive orders, may become an increasingly important reference point in a political battle where even a signature is under suspicion.
President Trump declared void all documents he alleges were signed by an Autopen during Biden’s administration, citing a House Oversight report claiming misuse and 92% Autopen use. The move targets executive orders, pardons, and commutations, and spurred a Trump administration probe plus proposed SIGN Pardons legislation to ban Autopen pardons. Biden denies the accusations. The declaration raises legal and procedural uncertainty about authenticating past presidential signatures.
