Trump says he has revoked Biden’s autopen pardons: But can he do it? | Donald Trump News

United States President Donald Trump says he has voided all pardons and commutations that were signed by his predecessor, Joe Biden, with an autopen.

“Any and all Documents, Proclamations, Executive Orders, Memorandums, or Contracts, signed by Order of the now infamous and unauthorised ‘AUTOPEN,’ within the Administration of Joseph R. Biden Jr., are hereby null, void, and of no further force or effect,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Tuesday evening.

“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,” he said.

However, legal experts say the US president’s move is not enforceable.

So, what documents did Biden sign with the autopen, who will be affected, and is Trump’s move legal?

What documents did Biden sign with his autopen?

Trump has repeatedly claimed that Biden’s use of the autopen, a mechanical device that allows signatures without a person using their hand, was a reflection of the former president’s physical and mental frailty.

Biden issued a record 4,245 acts of clemency during his four years in office, more than any other US president since the start of the 20th century, according to the non-partisan Pew Research Center.

Most of these acts were commutations or a reduction in sentence. Biden only issued 80 individual pardons, the second-lowest number over the same period, but he was better known for issuing “pardons by proclamation”, which impacted entire classes of people.

These included pardons by proclamation for former military service members convicted of violating a ban on gay sex, which has since been repealed, and people convicted of certain federal marijuana offences, according to the Pew Research Center.

But it is unclear how many, and which, of the pardons and commutations ordered by Biden were signed using an autopen.

Is Trump’s move legal?

Bernadette Miller, a US and United Kingdom constitutional law expert at Stanford University, told Al Jazeera that Trump does not have the power to reverse pardons or commutations.

“This declaration has no legal effect. Any laws or pardons that Biden signed by autopen remain valid. The only exception would be an executive order that has effect only until rescinded by the same or another president,” she told Al Jazeera by email.

“Those orders could be undone by Trump, so presumably, this statement would undo any orders of that kind. But pardons and laws remain valid.”

PolitiFact, a fact-checking website based at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, separately found that there is “no constitutional mechanism for overturning pardons, and an 1869 judicial ruling found that once delivered, a pardon is final.”

The US Constitution also does not specify whether a pardon must be signed by hand, PolitiFact said on its website.

Who might be affected by Trump’s move?

Trump has previously insisted that a series of “preemptive” pardons that Biden issued to US legislators who investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol were signed by autopen.

A mob of Trump supporters, seeking to prevent Biden’s certification as president by Congress, had attacked the Capitol, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump and his allies have repeatedly failed to demonstrate mass fraud in the election.

But the US president and his allies view Republicans who chose to investigate Trump, such as former members of Congress Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, as traitors to their movement.

In March, Trump said on Truth Social that the pardons for these legislators were “VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.”

Was Biden the first to use an autopen?

Biden was not the only US president to rely on an autopen, according to PolitiFact.

Similar devices have been used throughout most of US history — though as technology has advanced, so has the nature of autopens.

Thomas Jefferson, the third US president, used what was known as a polygraph: A device consisting of two pens rigged in a way that the second could copy the action of the first.

In the early 1960s, John F Kennedy used a more modern version of the autopen. More recently, Barack Obama used autopens on some occasions.

PolitiFact also found two legal memos from 1929 and 2005 stating that the US president does not have to sign documents by hand.