President Donald Trump announced on November 28, 2025, that he is voiding all executive orders and documents he claims were signed by former President Joe Biden using an autopen device, escalating a months-long campaign to delegitimize his predecessor’s actions. The declaration, posted on Trump’s Truth Social platform, threatens to invalidate what Trump asserts is approximately 92 percent of Biden’s official documents.
An autopen is a mechanical device that holds a real pen and automatically reproduces a person’s signature with high accuracy using a handwriting template. The technology has been employed by U.S. presidents since the Truman administration for signing letters, thank-you notes, and bulk paperwork. The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel confirmed in a 2005 memo that presidential use of autopens is legal for signing legislation and executive acts, provided the president authorizes the signatures.
Trump’s announcement specifically targeted Biden’s 162 executive orders, along with hundreds of memoranda, proclamations, and notices signed during his presidency. Among the most controversial documents were autopen-signed pardons issued to Anthony Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for nearly 40 years, and General Mark Milley. Biden also pardoned members of the House Select Committee who investigated the January 6 Capitol riot.
This marks the second time Trump has attempted to nullify Biden’s pardons. In March 2025, he first declared the pardons issued to January 6 committee members void, launching an investigation into Biden’s aides for allegedly concealing the former president’s cognitive decline and misusing the autopen. Trump claimed at the time that Biden “did not sign them, but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them.”
Trump went further in his latest statement by threatening Biden himself with criminal prosecution. “Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury,” Trump wrote. The threat came despite Biden’s June 2025 denial of unauthorized autopen use, in which the former president stated he made all decisions during his presidency and personally authorized every pardon and commutation.
The White House has reinforced Trump’s position by replacing Biden’s official portrait with an image of an autopen in the presidential walk of fame near the Rose Garden. The symbolic gesture underscores the administration’s commitment to questioning the legitimacy of Biden’s executive actions, particularly those issued during his final months in office when he was 82 years old.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has supported Trump’s claims, asserting that Biden’s cognitive decline meant he did not know about the pardons he signed. However, congressional investigations conducted through June 2025 found no proof that Biden used the autopen without authorization. Trump himself used autopen technology during his first term in office, a fact that complicates his current arguments against the practice.
The response from Trump’s allies has been swift. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene called for Fauci’s prosecution, writing that if autopen pardons are repealed, authorities should “prosecute Fauci for crimes against humanity.” The renewed scrutiny of Fauci’s pardon has energized conservative activists who have long sought legal action against the former health official for his role in the COVID-19 pandemic response.
Legal experts have largely dismissed Trump’s claims as constitutionally dubious. Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley said in March that Trump’s chances of successfully challenging Biden’s autopen pardons in court would be “vanishingly low.” The Constitution grants the president broad authority to issue pardons and contains no explicit requirement that documents be physically signed by the president’s hand. Legal scholars note that once clemency has been accepted by the intended recipient, it cannot be revoked by a successor.
Biden’s family members also received pardons during his final day in office, though the specifics of which documents were hand-signed versus autopen-signed remain unclear. Biden’s son Hunter received a hand-signed pardon, marking it as one of the few documents from Biden’s final months confirmed to bear his personal signature rather than a mechanical reproduction.
The 2005 DOJ memo that Trump’s critics cite explains that presidents need not personally perform the physical act of affixing their signature to a bill for it to become law. The memo states that using an autopen to affix the president’s signature to legislation, or directing a subordinate to do so, is legally acceptable as long as the president authorizes the action. This legal precedent has governed presidential document signing for two decades across both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Trump’s announcement raises questions about which specific executive orders will be targeted for cancellation and how the administration will determine which documents Biden personally signed versus those signed by autopen. The practical implications remain unclear, as does the legal mechanism Trump intends to use to enforce his declaration beyond the social media post.
The controversy highlights the ongoing partisan divide over executive power and the lengths to which political opponents will go to challenge their predecessors’ legacies. Trump, now 79 years old, faces his own questions about age and capacity as he serves his second term, though he has vigorously denied any health concerns and recently released medical test results showing he passed cognitive examinations.
