President Trump on Monday cast doubt on former President Joseph R. Biden’s claim that he used the autopen to sign pardons for his family and others due to the high volume of clemency requests on his desk.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said the autopen is typically reserved for routine correspondence—such as letters to voters or children—not for pardons or other serious legal actions. He also questioned whether Biden, whose mental acuity has faced increasing scrutiny, fully understood what he was authorizing.
“An autopen is supposed to write to a young, 7-year-old boy that writes to the president and wants to be president someday and he loves America,” Trump said. “That’s what the autopen is supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be for signing major legislation and all other things.”
“I doubt he knew. I doubt they even spoke to him about it,” Trump added. “Biden was never for open borders. Biden was never for transgender for everyone.”
Trump slammed his predecessor’s advisers as “sick people” and reiterated his belief that Biden had no idea what he was signing.
In a New York Times interview published Sunday, Biden pushed back, accusing Trump and congressional Republicans of spreading false claims that his aides used the autopen to sign documents without his awareness.
“They’re liars. They know it,” Biden said in response to claims that he was incapacitated near the end of his presidency and unaware of decisions being made in his name. “I made every single one of those” decisions about clemency, he claimed.
In the final days of his administration, Biden issued hundreds of pardons—granting clemency to individuals in home confinement to prevent their return to prison, reducing sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, and pardoning several family members as well as members of the House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
