Trump Orders Investigation into Biden's Autopen Use, Alleging Aides Concealed Cognitive Decline. The Department of Justice and White House counsel are investigating claims that President Biden's aides misused an autopen to sign executive orders, pardons, and other official documents, potentially concealing his cognitive abilities and usurping presidential power. This controversial investigation follows accusations of a conspiracy to deceive the American public
Trump's investigation into Biden: a meritless fishing expedition? The President's order to investigate his predecessor, potentially impeachable until recently, lacks legal basis and alleges no broken laws or constitutional violations. Critics call it a politically motivated attack aimed at revenge and generating negative press against Democrats. The investigation focuses on unfounded claims of Biden's aides using an autopen to conceal cognitive decline and misuse presidential authority
Trump launches investigation into Biden's autopen use, alleging aides concealed cognitive decline and abused Article II authority. The memorandum claims this constitutes a dangerous scandal, accusing aides of deceiving the public and improperly wielding executive power via thousands of autopenned documents, including executive orders and pardons. This investigation targets potential conspiracies to mislead the public regarding Biden's mental fitness and the legality of his actions
Trump launches investigation into Biden, alleging autopen misuse concealed cognitive decline and unconstitutional policy shifts. The memorandum claims a dangerous conspiracy to deceive the American public, citing thousands of documents signed via autopen while key decision-makers remained hidden. This alleged abuse of presidential power involved radical policy changes, raising concerns about the legitimacy of executive actions during Biden's presidency
Trump Orders Investigation into Biden's Executive Actions and Mental Fitness: Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Counsel David Warrington are tasked with investigating allegations of a conspiracy to deceive the public regarding President Biden's mental capacity and the unauthorized execution of presidential powers, including executive orders, proclamations, pardons, and clemency grants, during his final years in office. The investigation will examine the use of an autopen and whether it concealed Biden's alleged cognitive decline
Trump's investigation into Biden's use of an autopen to sign executive actions, led by White House Counsel Warrington, aims to invalidate Biden's pardons for January 6th defendants and clemency grants for death row inmates. Trump claims these actions are unconstitutional and void, despite lacking the authority to declare them so, alleging a conspiracy to conceal Biden's cognitive abilities and misuse presidential power. This investigation focuses on the legality of autopen usage for crucial executive decisions, including pardons and clemency grants, questioning who directed the use of the President's signature
Trump's investigation into President Biden's alleged cognitive decline and autopen use lacks evidence. Claims of aides concealing Biden's mental state and abusing presidential signing authority through autopen use to enact policy are unfounded and unsupported by evidence. This politically motivated inquiry, lacking legal basis, appears to be a partisan attack rather than a legitimate investigation into wrongdoing
Fueled by online misinformation, a right-wing conspiracy alleges President Biden's aides used an autopen to forge his signature on official documents, including pardons. This claim, amplified by The Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project, falsely suggests a systematic effort to conceal Biden's cognitive abilities and usurp executive power. The investigation, prompted by a Missouri Attorney General's speculative call, centers on purported inconsistencies in Biden's signature across various executive actions
Trump's investigation into Biden's pardon signatures reveals a flawed premise: identical digital signatures on all Federal Register documents are a result of a single presidential signature provided to the National Archives for all digitally signed documents, not evidence of wrongdoing. This practice, using a standardized digital signature for all presidential documents in the digital era, applies to all presidents, rendering the claim of deception unfounded
Trump's investigation into Biden's autopen use raises a critical constitutional question: The Constitution doesn't mandate presidential signatures on pardons, clemency grants, or any documents besides congressional bills. This omission undermines the legal basis of Trump's claims of constitutional violations and potential cover-up
Presidential Pardons: Understanding the Constitutional Power of Reprieves and Pardons. The US Constitution grants the president the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, with the exception of impeachment cases. This power, and its limitations, are central to the ongoing debate surrounding executive authority
That’s it.
Unlike presidential bill signings mandated by the Constitution—requiring the president's signature for legislation to become law—this investigation questions the validity of actions taken during the Biden presidency, focusing on the use of an autopen for signing documents
Trump's memorandum targets former President Biden, alleging aides misused autopen signatures to conceal cognitive decline and usurp executive authority. This investigation focuses on presidential documents, executive orders, and judicial appointments, claiming a conspiracy to deceive the public. However, the memorandum ignores relevant legislation and the lack of constitutional requirements for presidential signatures or personally handwritten documents. The investigation is widely viewed as a politically motivated attack, lacking legal basis and focusing on "fishing expeditions" rather than concrete evidence of wrongdoing
From 1803's first U.S. patent to President Obama's Hawaiian pardons, autopens have signed countless presidential documents. Their use, publicly acknowledged by President Johnson in *The National Enquirer*, is now at the center of a controversial investigation into President Biden's administration. This investigation alleges misuse of autopen technology to conceal potential cognitive decline and improperly exercise presidential authority
Legality of Presidential Autopen Use: A 1929 Solicitor General Opinion Clarified in a 2017 USA Today Report
“Nobody but the president can exercise the power, but the power having been exercised the manner of making a record and evidence thereof is a mere detail which he can prescribe in accordance with what he deems to be the practical necessities and proprieties of the situation,” that 1929 opinion states.
As for the one line in the Constitution that directs the president to sign something — bills passed by Congress — the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a legal opinion in 2005, written by Howard Nielsen (whom Trump appointed to a district court judgeship), that found it is constitutional for a president to use an autopen to sign legislation, whether he was present for the signing or not, so long as he directed it to be signed. Obama became the first president to sign legislation with an autopen in 2011.
This opinion contains copious historical evidence for the use of autopen, or, as it was referred to in the past, “facsimile signature,” by presidents.
In 1969, an Office of Legal Counsel opinion written by William Rehnquist, who would later be appointed Chief Justice of the United States, “advised that the Secretary of State could sign extradition warrants for the President pursuant to ‘a letter from the President to the Secretary requesting him to affix a facsimile of the President’s signature, or to sign in his behalf, or both.’”
All that this required was “provision for notification of and approval by the President prior to the signing,” according to Rehnquist’s opinion.
“The question of whether the President should manually sign his name to a document is primarily one of propriety rather than of law, and it is within the President’s discretion to determine which documents he wishes to personally sign and those with respect to which he wishes to delegate the signing to someone else in his behalf or have his own signature written or affixed by means other than his own hand,” the Rehnquist opinion states.
The only thing that is required is that the president be the one to order a document or bill to be signed. And Biden has repeatedly endorsed and defended all of the actions he took and signed during his presidency.
“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” Biden said in a statement in response to Trump’s investigation.
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The lack of any legal or constitutional issue here and the origins of the accusations against Biden and his aides as rooted in a half-baked, evidence-free conspiracy tell us all we need to know. This is, like so many actions taken in the second Trump administration, a pretext to launch investigations into Trump’s political foes in order to produce rage bait content for the conservative media machine and punish those Trump promised to get revenge on.
There is no law here, just simple vengeance.
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