All posts tagged "Autopen"

President Donald Trump sparked outrage by joking about the "autopen" on a portrait to get a laugh out of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

On Thursday, the White House X account posted a video of Trump giving Xi a tour of the Presidential Walk of Fame, a West Colonnade display of gold-framed portraits of past presidents that Trump installed last September. Former President Joe Biden's portrait is notably swapped out with an autopen, reflecting Trump and his allies' claim that Biden's aides used the signature device on pardons and orders because he was mentally unfit. Biden denies the claim.

"Trump, Trump," the president said, pointing at the portraits on both sides of the autopen. "This is the autopen...It's Biden," Trump then explained to Xi with a pat on the arm....

A legal expert on Friday said it's unlikely that President Donald Trump will have the legal ability to carry out his bizarre move after he claimed that all laws and pardons under former President Joe Biden signed by autopenwere null and threatened perjury against him if he claims otherwise.

No requirement in the Constitution has said that the president needs to physically sign documents, Berit Berger, a former federal prosecutor, told CNN on Friday afternoon.

"It's absolutely appropriate for a president to have directed a subordinate to sign for him or to use a document," Berger said. ...

President Donald Trump recently announced on social media that he was declaring all of former President Joe Biden's executive orders invalid, and that he wasn't ruling out having his predecessor charged with crimes.

In a Friday post to his Truth Social platform, Trump declared: "Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92 [percent] of them, is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect. The Autopen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the President of the United States."

"I am hereby cancelling 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," the president added. "Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury."...

Critics were outraged after President Donald Trump announced Friday in a Truth Social post that any order signed using an autopen by former President Joe Biden would be terminated.

Trump warned that if Biden objected to his move, he would face perjury charges. It wasn't immediately clear what legal authority he has to do so.

Social media users had plenty to say after the surprising claim. ...

WASHINGTON — If Republicans want to debate allegedly illegal pardons, Democrats are all in.

After House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) dropped a new report that claims President Joe Biden’s end-of-term pardons should be deemed “void” because they were signed by an autopen, Democrats questioned the get out of jail free cards President Donald Trump doled out to some 1,500 Jan. 6, 2021 rioters after his inauguration this year.

“I hope [the report] will be an analysis by Republicans of Trump's pardon of 1,550 people,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) — who received a Biden pardon arising from his work on the House Select Committee on January 6th — told Raw Story....

WASHINGTON – Dismissing President Donald Trump’s claim that preemptive pardons Joe Biden gave members of the House January 6 committee are invalid if Biden used an autopen to sign them, the senior Democrat who chaired that panel and received such a pardon doubted whether Trump himself signed all pardons he gave supporters who carried out the Capitol attack.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told Raw Story: “Ask him! Did he sign all 1,500 pardons?”

Trump and Republican allies claim aides to Biden used an autopen to sign documents as the then president was too old and infirm to wield a pen himself....