For Donald Trump, the most significant scandal in American history isn’t […]. It’s also not the Teapot Dome scandal of the early 1920s or Watergate.
In his view, aside from the 2020 election which he disputes, the biggest scandal in U.S. politics involves a machine that replicates signatures.
An autopen is central to Trump’s political attacks on Joe Biden. In June, Trump targeted Biden and his former White House Staff Secretary, accusing them of misusing the President’s signature for “important things”. He questioned the validity of Biden’s pardons, commutations, and presidential appointments, suggesting the machine concealed Biden’s “serious cognitive decline.”
Biden has refuted these claims, calling Trump and his associates “liars.”
Speaking to the New York Times on July 10, Biden stated that he personally “made every decision” on clemency and authorized the use of the autopen due to the high volume of cases.
“The autopen is legal,” he told the Times. “Other Presidents, including Trump, have used it.”
However, Trump continues to focus on the autopen controversy.
Speaking at the White House on [Date], he reiterated that it is “maybe one of the biggest scandals that we’ve had in 50-100 years… I guarantee you: he [Biden] knew nothing about what he was signing.”
Trump also claimed the autopen was misused, arguing it should be reserved for trivial matters instead of important documents. “That’s what the autopen’s supposed to be—to write to a young 7-year-old boy,” he said. “It’s not supposed to be for signing major legislation and all of the things.”
The autopen has become a focal point for Republicans questioning Biden’s mental fitness, particularly as his term progresses, seemingly to challenge the legitimacy of his signed decisions.
Rep. James Comer (R, Ky.), head of the House Oversight Committee, is investigating Biden’s supposed “abuse” of the autopen and has issued subpoenas to those connected to Biden. (NBC News reported that Comer’s digital signature was used in letters and subpoenas related to the probe.)
A history of replicated signatures
The history of autopens and signature replication traces back to 1803, when John Isaac Hawkins patented his “Polygraph,” a handwriting duplication machine. Thomas Jefferson is believed to have used an early version, praising it by saying: “The use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press, the copies of which are hardly ever legible… I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph.”
The use of an autopen was once a matter of discretion and referred to as one of Washington’s “secrets.” Harry Truman is thought to be the first U.S. President to use what is now known as an autopen. Gerald Ford formalized its use, with White House staff using the machines to reproduce signatures on photographs and letters.
The signing machine gained public visibility when Lyndon B. Johnson became the first President photographed using it. These photos appeared in the 1968 National Enquirer with the headline “The Robot that Sits in for the President.”
In a 1989 Washington Post article, autograph collector Paul K. Carr noted the different ways Presidents used autopens. Carr identified Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan as presidents who issued the most varied autopen signatures.
In 2005, under George W. Bush, a legal analysis regarding the use of autopens was conducted. At Bush’s request, the Justice Department issued an opinion stating 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 within the meaning of Article I, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.” Bush did not ultimately use autopens to sign bills.
Six years later, Barack Obama became the first President to sign legislation into law using the autopen, using it through the White House Staff Secretary to sign a last-minute extension of the Patriot Act while he was in France for the G8 Summit. Several House Republicans asked Obama to stop the practice, claiming that none of his predecessors had used an autopen to sign bills into law.
Later that year, Obama again used the autopen in Bali, Indonesia, for an appropriations bill. In 2013, Obama used the autopen again to sign the fiscal cliff bill while on vacation in Hawaii.
What we know about Biden’s and Trump’s autopen use
According to emails obtained by the New York Times, Biden authorized four sets of clemency actions recorded with an autopen, including preemptive pardons for his family. The autopen was used “in all, on 25 pardon and commutation warrants from last December to January.” TIME has not reviewed these emails.
The emails reportedly confirmed that Stefanie Feldman, former White House Staff Secretary, managed Biden’s autopen, requiring written records of Biden’s oral instructions before use.
Before leaving office, Biden met with his senior aides. Following the meeting, Jeffrey Zients, then-White House Chief of Staff, sent an email on Jan. 19 to the meeting participants stating: “I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons.”
Trump and his team have been questioned about their evidence suggesting Biden did not approve the clemency actions. Harrison Fields, the White House principal deputy press secretary, told The National News Desk that “the truth will come out about who was, in fact, running the country, sooner or later.”
Trump, however, has minimized his own use of the autopen.
When asked in March if he used it, he stated: “Yes, only for very unimportant papers… I’ll sign them whenever I can, but when I can’t, I, you know, would use an autopen. But to use them for what they’ve used it for is terrible.”
“`
