That’s right: While the Oversight Project hasn’t confirmed it yet, evidence suggests that beyond a rogue staffer using the autopen — possibly without Biden’s authorization — one or more aides may have outright signed his signature on certain pardons and commutations.

Could the inconsistencies be a symptom of Biden’s cognitive decline? Perhaps. But the variations in his signature may point to something even more troubling: deliberate forgery.

This could be huge because it tells us that staffers were confident Biden was out of it to the extent that they could get away with actual forgery, not just abuse of the autopen.

For those on the right who think this will invalidate much of the prior administration, this is magical thinking along the lines of a silver bullet designed to stop everything.

I actually do know the law here fairly well.

The basic rule of thumb is that signing a document is a ministerial act. The intention matters. If Joe Biden intended for someone to sign his name on a document, that is what matters. This is a rule in common law going back to the English Kings in the 1600’s who often had others affix the King’s seal to matters. Those matters were binding because the King’s intended his seal to be affixed even if he did not pour the wax and set down his seal.

I’ve had people throw wild hypotheticals at me since I brought this up yesterday. “What if they summoned Joe Biden’s doctor to court and he testified Joe Biden was out of his mind and incapable of doing so?” Sure. Good luck with that.

What is more likely is that Joe Biden’s wife and Chief of Staff would testify that Joe Biden was in sound mind at the time, lucid, etc. etc. etc. and that he did intend for his signature to be affixed by an auto pen.

All day yesterday, people who do not know the law in this area kept spinning wilder and wilder and more argumentative hypotheticals. I get the desire for a silver bullet, but it is a fairy tale.

What is real is this.

The Supreme Court has never heard the matter of pardons before. But the White House Office of Legal Counsel, during the Bush years, affirmed the long held view that signing a document is ministerial. What matters is the intention of the President — if the President tells you to sign his name, that is as good as the President signing it. The Office of Legal Counsel matter was legislation, not a pardon, but the same basic principle applies. There are numerous court cases of executives authorizing others to sign legally binding documents on their behalf and all those cases conclude the signing is just a ministerial act so long as the executive had not surrendered his power to make the decision.

Only the President can sign a bill into law. Only the President can make certain appointments, promotions, and commissions. Only the President can grant pardons. To argue he can use an auto pen on the first three and not the last is a weak argument. Even more so, a clear reading of the Constitution affirmatively requires the President to “sign” legislation, which can be done by directing another to sign his signature. The Constitution does not actually require the President “sign” a pardon to be effective.

You may not like this, but good luck challenging it in court. Likewise, a few weeks before the pardons, Biden expressed that he was leaning towards granting those pardons.

President Donald Trump declared any pardons signed by former president Joe Biden via autopen are officially "void," directing his ire very specifically at the House Select Committee behind the investigation of the January 6th protest at the Capitol.

Trump's comments were posted on his Truth Social media platform in the early hours of Monday morning.

"The 'Pardons' that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen," the President wrote.

"In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden.". //

Laocoön of Troy
an hour ago
This crap is why for millenia Kings, nobles, generals, Popes, and others who wield power employed heavy wax seals, signet rings, witness signitures, and other seals applied to documents to verify authenticity. The Sumerians used them for goodness sake!

At the bare minimum, physical access to the autopen machine must be as tightly controlled as the nuclear launch codes. Nobody should ever be authorized to use it solo. At least 1 other individual should be required for the machine to even work.

Indylawyer Laocoön of Troy
an hour ago
Note that those rings did allow the ruler to choose one aide to have the authority to use the ring and make decrees in his name, but the identity of that aide was therefore well known so that he could be held accountable for abusing the authority. See, for example, the fate of Haman in the Biblical book of Esther 3:10, 7:5-10, 8:2.

Hank Reardon
an hour ago
And let’s not forget that Biden DOJ senior executive and pardon attorney Liz Oyer was suddenly relieved of her job and escorted from the building two weeks ago. Because, stuff’s going on . . .

Shipwreckedcrew reported in Red State last week that Oyer was suddenly fired, had her government phone(s) confiscated, and was immediately escorted out the door before she could access any government computers. The long play here seems to be the full investigation of precisely how all of Dementia Joe’s pardons were vetted. And whether he even knew.

That gets into the issue over who was controlling the auto pen. I hope this stays front and center.

https://redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2025/03/10/pardon-attorneys-n2186488

On Sunday Trump posted a savagely funny reaction to the scandal on Truth Social. //

Now, that's just epic, he has a wicked sense of humor. He posted his "45" and "47" official photos. Then in the middle was the autopen. But that's right on target.

On Friday, Trump commented on what a problem the autopen under Biden created, terming it a "big deal." He said it was disrespectful to the office and raised questions about the validity of the actions that were signed. //

The Trump team released a statement saying they don't do what Biden did.

"We do not use the autopen for documents that exercise the powers of the Presidency. So, for example, we do not use the autopen for executive orders, presidential memoranda, decision memoranda, nominations, appointment orders or commissions, or bills to be signed,” he wrote.

That's the way it should be done. It should only be used for things that don't involve such powers, maybe general correspondence or copies of things.

A key aide to former President Joe Biden may have exceeded their authority by liberally using an autopen to sign official documents, according to two former White House sources, as President Trump’s aides set up “far more restrictive” rules governing the use of the mechanical device.

A document obtained by The Post outlines the narrow set of circumstances in which Trump’s signature can be affixed to documents, following controversy this week kicked off by a Heritage Foundation analysis of Biden signatures on various records, including last-minute pardons. //

One Biden White House source told The Post they suspect that a key aide to the then-president may have made unilateral determinations on what to auto-sign. The Post is not publishing that staffer’s name due to the lack of concrete evidence and refutations by other colleagues.

The Biden aide, who did not respond to requests for comment, would frequently make mention of what “the boss” wanted, the source said, but compatriots would have “no idea” if it was true because the internal culture was to not ask questions. //

The autopen, housed in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the White House, hasn’t been used only for weighty documents — such as pardons issued to former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Dr. Anthony Fauci in the closing days of Biden’s term.

In fact, the pen has been used by White House staff to ink everything from kitchen utensils to sports memorabilia. //

An internal memo drafted Thursday by Trump staff secretary William Scharf, who for the past two months has publicly described and presented documents to Trump for his signature in the Oval Office, lays out the restrictive current use of the autopen.

“We have gone significantly further than [the] need for express approval, both in this Administration and in the First Trump Administration,” Scharf wrote.

“Our practice around autopen usage is far more restrictive than most previous administrations. We do not use the autopen for documents that exercise the powers of the Presidency. So, for example, we do not use the autopen for executive orders, presidential memoranda, decision memoranda, nominations, appointment orders or commissions, or bills to be signed,” he wrote. //

Chelan Jim
5 hours ago
The Biden administration combined two movies "Dave" where a lookalike takes over for a president on life support and "Weekend at Bernie's" where the deceased was carried around to give the appearance he was still around.

In either case, if this is ever proven, this would be very much worse than the fabricated charges against the J6'ers.

mopani Chelan Jim
13 minutes ago
Throw in "Waking Ned Devine" for the hat trick.

Oversight Project

@OversightPR
🚨WHOEVER CONTROLLED THE AUTOPEN CONTROLLED THE PRESIDENCY🚨

We gathered every document we could find with Biden's signature over the course of his presidency.

All used the same autopen signature except for the the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the race last year. Here is the autopen signature.

Here is the signature from the letter announcing Biden was dropping out of the race. //

Libs of TikTok
@libsoftiktok
BREAKING: Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey asked the DOJ to investigate whether Biden’s cognitive mental decline allowed unelected officials to make decisions without his knowledge or approval.

If that’s the case, Biden’s executive orders, pardons, and other actions, may be unconstitutional and void.
Attorney General Andrew Bailey
Last edited
4:19 PM · Mar 5, 2025

Oversight Project

@OversightPR
Recall that former President Biden admitted to
@SpeakerJohnson
that he did not remember signing an executive order pausing LNG exports.

So, who signed it?

For investigators to determine whether then-President Biden actually ordered the signature of relevant legal documents, or if he even had the mental capacity to, they must first determine who controlled the autopen and what checks there were in place.

2:10 PM · Mar 6, 2025

The combination of these two factors leads to the question of whether a presidential pardon bearing an autopen signature is valid if Biden was unaware such pardons were being issued in his name. Is the power to issue pardons something that can be delegated by a president if it is exercised without his actual knowledge as to how that delegated power was used?

The records of the Office of the Pardon Attorney could produce relevant evidence on at least two key issues – were any of the controversial pardons issued in the waning hours of the Biden administration the subject of any review or recommendation by the Pardon Attorney? If not, that increases the likelihood that officials in the White House exercised the authority by going around the process for review and recommendations that were in place. The question as to why they would do that then becomes relevant to possible criminal intent – to hide what they were doing. //

RedinOR
5 hours ago
My theory is that the crackhead sold pardons as one last govt-sponsored grift. It's been reported that he was running things in the final weeks/months; using the autopen would have facilitated the scheme. Maybe he did his own, which is how we got from "I absolutely won't pardon my son" to "hey - the crackhead is in the clear for a ten-year period.". //

Popdaddy
2 hours ago
You have to know FJB's handlers signed all the regular criminal and Congress pardons. He had no clue.
Hunter and the Biden Crime Family pardons were handled by the convicted felon himself, he had the biggest need and wouldn't risk leaving it to the old dolt.

"The CBP Home App gives aliens the option to leave now and self-deport, so they may still have the opportunity to return legally in the future and live the American dream. If they don’t, we will find them, we will deport them, and they will never return," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News. //

ConservativeInMinnesota
5 hours ago
Let them make some money as they get deported. Add a tip line for them to turn in illegal aliens, employers and smugglers. For each tip that pans out they make money and we get tips to bust scum like AOC that enable illegal aliens.

One of the NASA astronauts trapped on the International Space Station said he believes Elon Musk’s claim that the Biden administration rejected the SpaceX CEO’s offer to help bring the team home.

Barry “Butch” Wilmore made the comment Tuesday during an in-orbit press conference with fellow castaway Sunita Williams nine months after their Boeing Starliner capsule malfunctioned and left the pair stuck on the ISS.

One questioner asked about Musk’s recent claim that former President Joe Biden had intentionally stalled their rescue for “political reasons.”

In an earlier question, Wilmore denied that politics had anything to do with the team’s delayed departure, but he seemed to shift his stance when answering the later question.

“I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual … I believe him,” he said.

His dad leaves public office and the money dries up. Weird, isn’t it?

The federal response to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and Tennessee could have been easily mistaken for a calculated campaign of ethnic cleansing. The White House ignored the storm damage in Appalachia, taking over a week to even acknowledge it existed. //

The slow-rolling of repairs on I-40 appeared to be just another part of the plan to depopulate North Carolina's Appalachian region and flip the state from purple to bright blue. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who'd already displayed his particular brand of incompetence by taking "paternity leave" (lol) and the Third World response to a container ship dropping the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, said, "It will take billions of dollars and months, if not years" to reopen I-40. //

The newly opened road section does have speed restrictions and can't be used by trucks with oversized loads, but that will gradually improve. For the time being, the communities and businesses along I-40 have a functioning highway.

Officials estimate it will take another two to three years to fully restore I-40 to its original four-lane capacity. However, this timeline is contingent on several factors, including material availability and weather conditions.

It could take that long if enough governmental entities drag their feet. I'd just point out that it didn't take three years to build this section of I-40 during its original construction in 1958.

JD Vance @JDVance
·
Pretty amazing. We’ve gotten too accustomed to our president hiding from the press.

Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh
🚨 NEW: Questions from the press taken in the first month, various presidents

🔵 Barack Obama: 161
🔴 Donald Trump [2017]: 199
🔵 Joe Biden: 141
🔴 Donald Trump [present]: 1,009

National Journal
2:35 AM · Feb 27, 2025. //

I believe I've remarked on this previously, but I want to take a moment to tip my hat to the current Trump administration for making full use of media — social and traditional — to continually get their message out to the American people. Rather than leaving Trump as the primary spokesman and leaving it up to legacy media to report on what he says and does accurately (ha!), this administration is wisely conducting a non-stop positive messaging assault via multiple telegenic and articulate surrogates. The entire Cabinet is regularly making the rounds and is highly visible on X, sharing tweets and videos of them actually doing things that make sense. This is a wise, effective strategy, in my view. It leaves the Democrats and their legacy media stenographers playing defense and looking rather silly in the process. //

GranpaNuke
18 hours ago
Your Morning Musing was spot on Susie....I had a similar thought yesterday after I read and commented on Trump's First Cabinet meeting:

"The Trump administration is executing a perfect end sweep around the front line of the main stream media. The speed with which they communicate the issues, and the use of the various means of mass communications schemes is something to behold. The legacy MSM just can't keep up with the information flow. They're stuck on stupid, lunging at the next shining object. They are in overload....and hopefully will remain in overload until they overheat and go up in flames....
I just remembered something a Naval Intel Analyst told my class at Destroyer School in Newport, RI. He was an expert on Russia (this was in the mid 80's). He said the Russian Intel folks had so much open sourced information coming in about the US Armed Forces and our capabilities, that they couldn't process and verify it all...they were overloaded and had a hard time separating the wheat from the chaff...
Seems like deja vu all over again..."

This backtracking from legal decisions pushed by Merrick Garland's hoodlums is a continuation of a long-running battle between the Marxist left that believes everyone is a member of a racial or ethnic group and Americans who believe we rise and fall to a great extent based on our own attributes unless the government intervenes. The left believes that statistical patterns can detect systemic racism even when, in this case, men and women of all races and ethnicities passed and failed the test.

It will take decades to undo the evil done by the left and to unravel this, to quote Chief Justice John Roberts, "sordid business, this divvying us up by race." But Trump and his appointees are making a valiant effort at changing the systems and dropkicking the people who worked them.

A New Harvard-Harris poll taken between February 19-20 of 2,443 registered voters shows that a whopping 75 percent of Democrats say they do not believe that Joe Biden and his hapless administration threw the doors of the United States wide open for millions of illegal immigrants to pour into the nation deliberately. The poll asked this question: "Do you think Democrats deliberately kept the southern border open to bring millions of immigrants into the country illegally, or was that not their deliberate policy?" Of those polled, 80 percent of Republicans believe the opposite, that Biden administration immigration policies were very deliberate.

In Texas, a doctor and whistleblower at the Texas Children’s Hospital was persecuted by the Biden administration for going public with the reality of these treatments. Award-winning journalist Catherine Herridge interviewed Dr. Eithan Haim and his wife Andrea and released the full interview Monday on X. It is truly must-see TV. Dr. Haim was, of course, persecuted by the Biden Justice Department for blowing the whistle on this unethical and unnecessary care for minors. //

Not only does this case represent an unforgivable instance of lawfare by a presidential administration against a medical practitioner who has gone public with his concerns over what is arguably an unethical practice, but it also shows the depth to which the adherents to gender ideology will go to keep treating kids.

Some key segments follow. The title of the interview is telling as well: "Government Malpractice - vindicated Texas surgeon speaks out after exposing Biden era gender affirming treatments for minors."

In 2023, the Biden administration's Department of Justice sued Elon Musk's SpaceX for discrimination, charging that the company did not hire people it wasn't legally allowed to hire.

Yes, really. That case is now being dropped; the new Trump administration's Department of Justice has filed a motion to have the case dismissed with prejudice. //

DogeDesigner @cb_doge
·
"SpaceX was told for many years that we could not hire anyone who was not a permanent resident of the U.S., or I would go to prison.

Then, a few years ago, the Biden administration decided to sue SpaceX for failing to hire asylum seekers."

2:55 AM · Jul 23, 2024. //

SupplyGuy
6 hours ago
So riddle me this: why have there been tons of prosecutors and lawyers willing to quit rather than "prosecute" or even drop cases, as required by the Trump administration, but not a darn one of them took a prinicipled stand and quit rather than pursue this obviously corrupt case?

Don't bother answering - we all know the answer - these prosecutors and lawyers are nothing more than corrupt commie-fascists.

Every ad for a government job should state "democrats need not apply" b/c they have shown that they cannot keep their political bias out of their work. //

anon-0g91 SupplyGuy
5 hours ago
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner .. You nailed the fundamental problem with the weasels. They only find their principles when Trump is involved. That is the same with all leftist jerks. They find ethics only when it suits them. The prosecutor who placed these charges needs to lose their law license for the frivolity of this case. //

anon-0g91 redstateuser
5 hours ago
This had nothing to do with America First. It had to do with Export Control laws that SpaceX had to operate under. Hiring non-US citizens would have broken the law as all the technology they deal with is export-controlled, and an Export is making that technology accessible to a foreign national without a security clearance. Non-US citizens can't get security clearances, and if the position requires one, that is just the way the law works. If you can't get a clearance, you don't get hired.

The organization was set up expressly to apply for the GGRF grant. It had only received $100 in funding during the 2023 tax year. Yet somehow, it managed to retain the services of a major law firm to file its return. //

I have some experience in grant writing, and the idea of a non-profit with $100 in the bank getting a $2 billion grant is about √-1 without shenanigans involved. The common theme seems to be Abrams. She was general counsel for one coalition partner, founder of two partners, and on the national advisory board of yet another partner.

Tuesday, a top DC prosecutor resigned rather than open an investigation into some part of the $20 billion GGRF grift; Top DOJ Prosecutor Walks Out Rather Than Investigate Biden 'New Green Deal' Grant for Criminal Behavior – RedState. It would be interesting to know which grant was under examination.

Mayor Pete failed for four years to address the air traffic controller shortage and upgrade our outdated, World War II-era air traffic control system. In less than four weeks, we have already begun the process and are engaging the smartest minds in the entire world.

Here’s the truth: the FAA alone has a staggering 45,000 employees. Less than 400 were let go, and they were all probationary, meaning they had been hired less than a year ago. Zero air traffic controllers and critical safety personnel were let go.

Mayor Pete chose to use this amazing department—that is so critical to America’s success—as a slush fund for the green new scam and environmental justice nonsense. Not to mention that over 90% of the workforce under his leadership were working from home - including him. The building was empty!

When we finally get a full accounting of his mismanagement, I look forward to hearing from him.In the meantime, I will not rest until I return the Department of Transportation and its incredible employees to its mission of efficiency and safety. //

jri500
8 hours ago
For 2 years during the Idiot Biden administration, the FAA DID NOT HAVE one single training classes for new Air Traffic Controllers (ATC). In the meantime, Biden's FAA refused to hire 1,000 newly qualified ATC graduates because they were WHITE.

When training finally resumed, FAA couldn't fill training classes because they couldn't find enough woke, minority, physically or psychologically challenged (WTF???) candidates to fill them. ANYTHING BUT WHITE. FAA is currently short about four (4) thousand ATCs. Add to that, the mandatory retirement age is 54!

The tower in DC called for a full staff of 30 ATCs. They had about half that. And the night the crash happened, 1 controller was doing the job of 2. Every airport in the country is short staffed. And democRATS are trying to blame Trump? He's been in office less than a month.

The head of the criminal division of the US Attorney's office in DC has resigned rather than investigate a Biden-sponsored New Green Deal grant network for possible criminal behavior. Denise Cheung announced her departure to staff with an email saying, “This office is a special place. I took an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution, and I have executed this duty faithfully.” //

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund was to funnel about $26 billion to the United Climate Fund and Climate Justice Alliance. This grant was funded in August 2024 to the tune of $20.3 billion, again in October for $4.3 billion, with the final tranche of $2 billion landing in December 2024/January 2025; see the details here. These were all part of the Biden "throwing gold bars off the Titanic" (see EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin Finds the $20 Billion 'Gold Bars' the Biden Administration Tried to Jettison – RedState) plan where immense amounts of grant funding would be "parked" in leftist 501(c)3 corporations that were supposed to continue to run beneath the radar even after Trump had taken office.

stickdude90
9 hours ago
Remind me again why we spend so much blood and treasure to protect these blowhards...

jri500 anon-fv7m
6 hours ago
Bill Clinton and his buddy, Bernard Schwartz (LORAL Space) GAVE China our ballistic missile gyroscope guidance technology. Just gave it to them because liberals couldn't stand the fact that the US was the world's lone super power at the time. China's missiles couldn't reach orbit. Clinton moved the gyro technology from Defense to the Commerce department, and put a CIA satellite on a Chinese rocket. And when that rocket crashed, the Chi Coms sifted the wreckage and reverse engineered our gyros. When Clinton took office, China had zero (0) nuclear missiles capable of hitting the US mainland. When he left office, they had 20. //

Dieter Schultz stickdude90
6 hours ago edited
Remind me again why we spend so much blood and treasure to protect these blowhards...
I think you might be looking at the US being forward deployed and allied with nations around the world... through the wrong lens.

Yes we're spending money stationing forces around the world and, yes, some... maybe a lot of these countries... don't appreciate or deserve our protection but... look at it from the point of view of avoided costs.

But, we can't understand avoided costs unless we consider what isolationism might really cost us in the bigger scheme of things.

We were, mostly, isolationists between 1910 and 1940... not spending money with alliances and forward deploying our forces. Because of that the bad guys in the world didn't believe we'd respond as they gobbled up other countries. What they did believe, and what Churchill said so elegantly in some of his writing, was that if the US allowed its natural allies to fall, the position that the US would be in, strategically, would be difficult in the extreme.

So we stayed out of the areas but, when we were finally forced to act the costs in treasure and lives of our youth was great... far, far greater than they would have been if the Germans and Japanese really believed we would fight to stop them.

Since the end of WWII we've made a lot of mistakes and many of those mistakes have cost us 10s of thousands of our youth and untold treasures but, even with Russia's aggressive moves in the world, we haven't had a repeat of the carnage, loss of life, and expenditures of the country's treasures.

But, we should ask ourselves, even if we've helped protect people that didn't seem to appreciate and value our sacrifice, if, like happened to us leading up to WWI and WWII, would we have likely gotten sucked into another one of the continent's or world's battles and cost ourselves 10 or 100 times the loss of carnage, loss of life, and expenditures of our treasure anyway?

I see the discussions about forward deploying our forces around the world much like the Chesterton's Fence and we should ask ourselves, why that fence was needed in the first place?

Many in this country just want to tear down that fence but, as Chesterton might see it: "If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’”