Attorney General Pam Bondi said her office is reviewing the legality of former President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen for signing pardons — a move that echoes the ongoing partisan effort to discredit Biden’s final executive actions.
In a statement posted to X, Bondi confirmed her team had “initiated a review” after a House Oversight Committee report argued that pardons and other executive orders signed with an autopen could be “void” without written proof that Biden personally approved them.
The claim — pushed by Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and embraced by House Speaker Mike Johnson — contends that without Biden’s hand on the pen, those presidential actions never truly happened. But legal experts say that’s simply not how executive authority works.
A 2005 Justice Department opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel explicitly authorized the use of an autopen, affirming that a president may instruct a subordinate to affix his signature to an approved document. What the president cannot do, the memo clarified, is delegate the decision-making itself.
In other words, the president doesn’t need to physically sign the paper — but he must have made the decision. The White House has said Biden did just that.
Biden himself told The New York Times in July that he personally authorized “every single clemency decision.” During his final months in office, he issued thousands of commutations and pardons, including for low-level drug offenses, and preemptively pardoned some family members, fearing they could become political targets in the next administration.
Republicans have zeroed in on the autopen issue as part of a broader narrative suggesting Biden was unfit for office during his final year. The Oversight Committee’s report alleges that the White House failed to record Biden’s authorization for several autopen-signed documents, framing it as evidence of a “cover-up” surrounding his health.
Comer’s letter to Bondi urges her to investigate Biden aides accused of coordinating the alleged deception. “The validity of all pardons reportedly granted by President Biden throughout his tenure is in question,” the report declares.
Democrats, meanwhile, called the investigation political theater. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the committee’s ranking member, said the testimonies proved the opposite of what Republicans claimed: “Every witness confirmed that President Biden personally authorized all clemency and executive orders. This is a sham.”
Garcia’s minority report noted that no evidence exists showing Biden’s autopen was used without his direct approval. The report also pointed out the hypocrisy of Republicans ignoring former President Donald Trump’s own statements admitting that “other people handled” the signing of at least one presidential proclamation during his administration.
Autopens have long been used in the modern presidency. President Barack Obama famously signed a Patriot Act extension from France in 2011 using the device. Trump himself once joked about using it to sign letters for supporters.
Still, Bondi’s review adds a new layer of tension between the Justice Department and the White House, and gives fresh fuel to Trump allies eager to invalidate Biden’s legacy.
“The Trump administration has spent months trying to rewrite history,” said a former Justice Department official familiar with the process. “Every president since Eisenhower has used an autopen. It’s a tool, not a scandal.”
