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EXCLUSIVE: The White House is investigating former President Joe Biden’s use of the autopen, with senior administration officials telling Fox News Digital that they already are reviewing tens of thousands of documents turned over by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Officials told Fox News Digital that the White House Counsel’s Office is leading the investigation, but said they are coordinating with the Justice Department.
BIDEN ONLY HAND-SIGNED ONE PARDON DURING FINAL SPREE, AND IT WAS HIS MOST CONTROVERSIAL ONE
The investigation is focused on communications and other records related to Biden’s use of the autopen.
A senior administration official told Fox News Digital that they are not yet ready to discuss any discoveries, but said NARA already has provided more than 27,000 records to the White House.
“Joe Biden was the worst, most incompetent, and senile president in our country’s history,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital Tuesday. “It has been widely reported that Joe Biden handed the power of the presidency to an autopen controlled by unelected leftist staffers, who were allowed to make terrible decisions that destroyed our country.”
“The Trump White House is committed to finding the answers to the many outstanding questions the American people still have about how business in the Biden White House was conducted,” she said.
President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump arrive for the inauguration ceremony in Washington on Jan. 20, 2025. (Melina Mara/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
The official told Fox News Digital that they expect to review upward of one million documents.
As for access to records held by NARA, the official said each sitting president has access to documents held by the archives from the prior administration.
Senior administration officials told Fox News Digital that the scope of the review covers relevant documents related to Biden’s presidency and use of the autopen over several years, in an effort to bring transparency to the American people regarding the former president’s health.
Officials also said they are specifically reviewing whether there was any policy in place to safeguard the use of the autopen.
“What did the former president direct, versus what he did not,” one official explained. “The only time a legitimate use of the autopen should happen is if the president said he wanted something done, or if he was asked for his approval.”
“This has been a priority for the administration since the beginning,” another official said. “The president’s signature is one of the most important signatures in the world.”
(Officials also said they are specifically reviewing whether there was any policy in place to safeguard the use of the autopen. (DOJ/Getty))
WHAT IS AN AUTOPEN? THE SIGNING DEVICE AT THE HEART OF TRUMP’S ATTACKS ON BIDEN PARDONS
“Was the autopen inappropriately used?” an official asked. “The White House and DOJ are reviewing documents through NARA and expect to do a deep dive on hundreds of thousands more documents.”
Biden used the autopen to sign a slew of documents while in office. He also used the autopen to sign final pardons, including preemptive pardons for members of his family, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, and members and staff of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots. He only signed one pardon by hand, for his son Hunter, after vowing to the American people for months he would not do so.
In his final weeks in office, Biden granted clemency and pardoned more than 1,500 individuals, in what the White House described at the time as the largest single-day act of clemency by a U.S. president.
An autopen is a machine that physically holds a pen and features programming to imitate a person’s signature. Unlike a stamp or a digitized print of a signature, the autopen has the capability to hold various types of pens, from a ballpoint to a permanent marker, according to descriptions of autopen machines available for purchase.
Damilic Corp. president Bob Olding anchors a sheet of paper as the Atlantic Plus, the Signascript tabletop model autopen, produces a signature at their Rockville, Maryland, office, June 13, 2011. (Manuel Balce Ceneta, File/The Associated Press)
“The question is, did Biden surrender his Article II executive authorities to unelected staffers that the American people don’t know, and to a machine that holds the same legal authority as his right hand, because he wasn’t capable of doing the job?” one official said. “Did unelected staffers, radical staffers, use the power of this machine to radically transform America?”
Biden, in a recent interview with the New York Times, defended his use of the autopen, saying that he “made every decision” on his own.
“We’re talking about (granting clemency to) a whole lot of people,” Biden said.
However, the Times reported that Biden “did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people,” according to the former president and his aides.
Congressional committees, like the House Oversight Committee, also are investigating the use of the autopen and Biden’s health while in office.
TRUMP CLAIMS BIDEN PARDONS ARE ‘VOID,’ ALLEGING THEY WERE SIGNED VIA AUTOPEN
A senior administration official recognized their simultaneous effort, but stressed that the White House Counsel’s investigation is completely separate from the congressional probe.
Former President Joe Biden, pictured here with his son Hunter, in a recent interview with the New York Times defended his use of the autopen, saying that he “made every decision” on his own. (Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Officials told Fox News Digital that the investigation is a “massive effort,” and one that they hope to finish “as soon as possible.”
“Lawyers are working diligently to get answers,” one official said. “It is important for the American people to know to what extent the media played a cover-up on Biden’s well-being, and which signatures were at his direction and which were at the direction of his staff.”
The official added: “They elected a president – not a staff.”
As for Trump, officials told Fox News Digital that he does not use the autopen for anything that could be considered official business.
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The only time Trump may use the autopen is for unofficial business, including correspondence, letters for birthdays, or commissioned records for widely shared documents.
President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House. (Fox News)
“Nothing that would be considered official business,” a White House official told Fox News Digital. “Every executive order signing has been public and the president has signed these documents live and in person.”
Trump, in June, sent a memo to the Department of Justice directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the autopen use, and to determine whether it was related to a decline in Biden’s mental state.
