I hadn't even heard of one of these before. I just figured that people who had to do billions of signatures had a rubber stamp. Nope. There are machines that do it with real ink pens. Manual ones have been around since 1803.
Why is this important? Right wing investigators think Joe Biden was so frail that others were using the autopen on documents without his knowledge. They think that makes them invalid.
The debate about the autopen has been around for a long time and it's use by past presidents varies.
In 2005, the Dept. of Justice determined that the use of an autopen was valid in a 30 page summary of a 126 page memo.
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 1, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the president's signature to a bill, for example by autopen
The Trump administration doesn't rule out it's use in certain circumstances, such as when multiple copies of a document need to be signed, or when a single document requires multiple signatures.
When the President is present at the signing and uses the autopen, the signature is authentic. When President Obama signed a document remotely in 2011, there was a question, but Congress accepted it.
So, Trump is raising a red herring about the use of an autopen, but he plans to use it as an indication of Biden's incapacitence.
Donald Trump brought it up Friday.
The stories about this started when a group called the Oversight Project let the Attorney General of Missouri know what they had "found." This was followed by the March 4th letter by the Missouri Attorney General to the DOJ Inspector General.
Missouri AG letter page 1
Missouri AG letter page 2
Missouri AG letter page 3
Then came the March 6th X post by the Oversight Project. The letter is available on the Oversight Project's X account if unreadable here. One of his concerns are about the resulting validity of pardons.
Oversight Project X post.
As you can see, the signatures are quite different, but again, the use of an autopen does not make them invalid.
Here are some better resolution copies.
Joe Biden
J.R. Biden
I don't see any blobs at the end of strokes.
Wayne Gretzky autopen example.
Here in this image of Wayne Gretzky's signature, you can see the stop and start blobs at the ends of strokes. Using an autopen in signing sports memorabilia and documents for sale reduces their value compared to the real thing.
We can see that they are different signatures from different times in the X post. The two signatures at the top are exact matches and the exact same size. That kind of precision is not possible with handwriting. They are most likely done by an autopen. So what? The two higher resolution signatures don't show any tell tale signs of autopen. Sometimes he puts the Jr. at the end, and sometimes not. Sometimes he's signing as Joe. He has signed letters as Joe Biden and as Joseph R. Biden. I looked up a good number of Biden's executive orders in the Federal Register and they'll all with the slash J and R and Biden, with periods on the J and R. and using the autopen.
People's signatures change over the years, and sign different ways depending on the occasion, and for executive orders at least, Joe uses the autopen, but then, they weren't done with a Sharpie that Trump uses.
The Missouri Attorney General's letter is just another way to create a controversy where none exists. He should have known about the DOJ 2005 memo. Michael J. Horowitz, the DOJ Inspector General, has had that position since 2012 under Obama, and is now serving his second time under Trump. His response to the Missouri AG will be interesting if publicized.
Someone has obviously tipped Trump off about a new way to attack Biden. Trump will go after Biden as frail again, implying that his brain wasn't functioning as well, when we knew he was fine. The reverse is true with Trump. He's not frail, but he has no brain at all.
Trump has a new thought in his head. Will the story die as it deserves to, or will he make time to go after Biden again?
He will say the autopen was used without Biden's knowledge or without his presence, because he can.
Trump is going to latch onto this if I read him right. He just loves to attack Crooked Joe or Sleepy Joe each chance he gets.
