Trump Claims Former President Joe Biden’s Pardons Are Invalid

President Donald Trump falsely claimed Tuesday that all pardons and commutations signed by former President Joe Biden are now “invalid” because they were allegedly authorized using the autopen. 

Trump’s declaration — posted on his Truth Social account — asserts that Biden’s clemency actions “cannot stand” because they were supposedly signed with the autopen, a mechanical signing device used by nearly every modern president from both political parties.

“Any and all Documents, Proclamations, Executive Orders, Memorandums, or Contracts, signed by Order of the now infamous and unauthorized ‘AUTOPEN,’ within the Administration of Joseph R. Biden Jr., are hereby null, void, and of no further force or effect,” Trump posted. “Anyone receiving ‘Pardons,’ ‘Commutations,’ or any other Legal Document so signed, please be advised that said Document has been fully and completely terminated, and is of no Legal effect.”

If taken seriously, thousands of people who received lawful pardons or commutations could suddenly find themselves in a new legal limbo and potentially re-criminalized — an outcome with no precedent in U.S. history.

To date, no president has ever attempted to retroactively revoke a predecessor’s clemency and no legal mechanism exists for doing so.

The pardon power is one of the few areas where the Constitution grants presidents sweeping and near-absolute authority. Once issued, a pardon cannot be revoked by Congress, the courts or a future president. 

The president’s attack on Biden comes just days after revelations that Trump himself has recently relied on mass-signature processes. After pardoning crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao, Trump admitted he had “no idea who he is,” raising fresh questions about oversight and authorization in his own clemency office.

And last month, seven Trump pardons briefly appeared on the Justice Department’s website bearing identical signatures before they were replaced — a telltale sign of autopen or batch signing. The administration called the episode a “technical error.”

Trump previously asserted that Biden “was not involved” in the executive signing process and warned that any contradiction from Biden would trigger criminal prosecution.

“I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally,” Trump wrote. “Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury.”

Despite claiming that 92% of Biden’s signatures were unauthorized, Trump offered no evidence nor any legal rationale for voiding the constitutional finality of clemency decisions.