WASHINGTON – Democrats on Capitol Hill are nervously laughing off President Donald Trump’s so-called investigation into Joe Biden’s use of an autopen.
Prominent Democratic senators who spoke to Raw Story at the Capitol on Thursday dismissed the effort — passed through executive order and giving Attorney General Pam Bondi authority to launch a criminal probe — as a made-for TV “political stunt.”
“It’s a political stunt trying to change the narrative from tariffs that are gonna harm the economy,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“It’s a gigantic distraction and totally frivolous and unfounded,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the second-most senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Raw Story.
“They would be better advised to focus on problems that really matter to everyday Americans, like rising prices and threats to our economy from dumb moves like imposing across-the-board tariffs. It’s a political stunt.”
Biden’s use of an autopen to sign documents — from pardons to pieces of legislation — has become the subject of Republican conspiracy theories.
Riding the coattails of the new book Original Sin, by Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios, conservative pundits and far-right politicians are claiming Biden was too old to function properly as president.
Biden was 78 when he entered the White House in 2021, and 82 when he left office this year.
Trump, who turns 79 next week, has shared numerous conspiracy theories about the man who beat him in 2020.
Last week, Trump shared the objectively absurd claim that Biden was “executed in 2020” and replaced by “clones[,] doubles and robotic engineered soulless mindless entities.”
Compared to that, the autopen conspiracy theory is relatively mundane, holding that aides used the robotic device to sign documents and keep the government running because Biden was too old to keep up.
Republicans claim documents signed by autopen would be invalid, including pardons issued by Biden to family members and leading Democratic politicians, especially those who served on the House January 6 committee.
Experts, historians and journalists have repeatedly countered that presidential autopen use is long established and perfectly legal — as Trump would know, having used an autopen himself.
“I don't think there's a there there,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told Raw Story. “I think this is more of a political point.”
Coons has more reason to know than most. A close Biden ally, he holds the Senate seat Biden vacated to become President Barack Obama’s vice president in 2009. He has also served as an executive himself, in his home state.
“Broadly, governors, mayors [and] presidents should have and need to have processes that guarantee that the documents that are executed by them are, you know, duly reviewed and appropriately executed,” Coons said.
“When I was county executive, we used to have signing day once a month where I would sit down and sign a stack of a thousand documents. And I remember saying on several occasions, ‘Do I really need to personally sign every single one of these?’
“Anyone who's been an executive of any significant entity recognizes that the use of the approved, auditable use of an autopen is essential to carrying out the due functions of a large government. The number of things the U.S. president has to sign would boggle the imagination.”
Asked about Republican claims that then-First Lady Jill Biden really ran the government during much of Biden’s four years in the White House, Coons answered wryly.
“In the case of Edith Wilson, where the president was literally in a coma, yeah, that was true,” Coons said.
President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke while in office in 1919. Accounts of Wilson’s illness differ, but he is not thought to have fallen into a coma.
Coons said he was with Biden in his final days in office, and he says he was cogent.
“I had breakfast with President Biden the last Friday that he was in the White House and he was present, engaging, positive, clear,” Coons said — before admitting that at other moments Biden seemed his age.
“Did he have some bad moments in his last year as president? Like the debate? Yes.”
Biden’s catastrophic display against Trump in Atlanta last June ultimately precipitated his withdrawal as Democrats’ presidential nominee.
“But I've seen no evidence that he actually, at any point, wasn't fully capable of being president,” Coons said.