What’s an autopen, and does it void Biden’s pardons? : NPR

President Trump is claiming without evidence that some of former President Joe Biden’s actions are invalid because he allegedly used a machine to automate signatures on documents, which is a longstanding practice in the White House.

In a late-night Truth Social post, Trump said his predecessor’s preemptive pardons of members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection are “hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OF EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.”

The notion that Biden relied on the autopen to sign important documents was heavily perpetuated by the Oversight Project, an arm of the Heritage Foundation that played a key role in promoting false claims about noncitizen voting last year.

Trump’s rhetoric fans the flames of conspiracies about Biden not really being in charge during his presidency. While concerns about Biden’s fitness for office forced him to call off his reelection campaign, the right has taken that to an extreme.

“In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!” Trump wrote of the pardons. However, there is no evidence that is the case.

It is not clear whether Biden actually used an autopen to sign the documents in question. And even if he did, legal experts say it’s not clear the pardons could be rescinded — for that or any other reason.

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, which grants presidents broad clemency powers, says the pardon only needs to be “accepted by its subject” to take effect — and does not mention anything about reversing them after the fact.

Jay Wexler, a professor of constitutional law at Boston University School of Law, told NPR he thinks the autopen issue is a “nonstarter” and a “distraction.” Importantly, he says, there is nothing in the Constitution that requires pardons be in writing at all.

“The argument that the pardon fails because it was signed by an autopen fails at the get-go, because there’s no requirement that the pardon even be signed,” he explained.

Trump acknowledged the potential grey area — and repeated his claim about Biden’s cognition — while speaking to reporters on Air Force One.

“It’s not my decision, that would be up to a court,” he said. “But I would say that they’re null and void, because I’m sure Biden didn’t have any idea that it was taking place.”

Concerns about Biden’s age and fitness for office are not new — even from Trump, who became the oldest president inaugurated when he began his second term at age 78. But claims that autopen signatures could be nullifying are more unusual, especially since multiple presidents have used the devices over the years.

“It doesn’t come up regularly,” Wexler says. “And I think that’s because people understand that it’s really not a real issue.”

What is an autopen? 

An autopen is a generic name for a machine that duplicates signatures using real ink, making it easy for public figures to autograph everything from correspondence to merchandise in bulk.

They are printer-sized machines with an arm that can hold a standard pen or pencil, and use it to replicate the programmed signature on a piece of paper below.

The Autopen Company, a Maryland-based firm that makes the devices, says they have been “used by universities, government agencies, and other institutions for more than 60 years.”

“The Autopen has long been a tool for the world’s most influential leaders, allowing them to more effectively apply their time and attention to important issues without compromising the impact of personalized correspondence,” it writes.

Where did they come from? 

A precursor to the autopen is the 19th-century polygraph, which allowed one writer to move two pens simultaneously. It was patented in the U.S. in 1803, produced the following year and used enthusiastically by Thomas Jefferson during and after his presidency.

“The use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press, the copies of which are hardly ever legible,” Jefferson wrote in 1809. “I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph.”

As the autopen evolved, a man named Robert De Shazo Jr. learned about an early design while working at a naval torpedo factory in Virginia during World War II. He created the technology and began commercially producing it shortly afterward.

De Shazo’s first customer was from the secretary of the Navy, and the devices quickly became commonplace in the government.

De Shazo — whose company, Automated Signature Technology, was headquartered in Virginia — told The Washingtonian in 1983 that an estimated 500 autopens were being used in the nation’s capital, from Congress to the Cabinet.

“Within four or five square blocks, you’ve got more people who need them than anyplace else in the world,” he said.

Which presidents have used them? 

A number of presidents since Jefferson have relied on autopens, some more publicly than others.

Harry Truman was rumored to have used one, as was Gerald Ford, according to the Shappell Manuscript Foundation.

Lyndon Johnson is credited with publicizing the practice by allowing photos of the device to be taken during his time in office. That story made the front cover of the National Enquirer in 1968 under the headline: “One of the best kept secrets in Washington: The Robot that Sits in for the President.”

The presidents who used autopens in the second half of the 20th century — a list that is reported to include John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon — did so to sign correspondence and other documents.

Barack Obama became the first known president to sign legislation with an autopen, in 2011, when he signed a Patriot Act extension while he was in France — prompting Republican critics to wonder whether that move was constitutionally sound.

It turned out that the administration of George W. Bush had already considered — and answered — that question. Bush’s Office of Legal Counsel published a 29-page document in 2005 concluding that the president “need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law.”

“Rather, the President may sign a bill … by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen,” it reads.

Bush ultimately decided against using the autopen himself, flying through the night to get back to the White House in time to sign emergency legislation in 2005. But his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was criticized for using one to sign hundreds of condolence letters to families of troops killed in the Iraq War.