At the federal level, the U.S. Constitution says that legislation passed by Congress shall be presented to the President and “if he approve, he shall sign it.”
A 2005 memo from the U.S. Department of Justice issued a legal opinion declaring that, “the President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves” and may direct “a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.”
As we settle into the second Trump era, we’re also seeing the return of the strangest things becoming a controversy thanks to a presidential post on Truth Social.
The latest of these is a post declaring that a batch of pardons signed by President Biden during his final days in office are “VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.”
Nothing contained in this blog is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Pacific Research Institute or as an attempt to thwart or aid the passage of any legislation.
When it comes to presidential use of autopen, is the pen mightier than the sword?
Tim Anaya
At the federal level, the U.S. Constitution says that legislation passed by Congress shall be presented to the President and “if he approve, he shall sign it.”
A 2005 memo from the U.S. Department of Justice issued a legal opinion declaring that, “the President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves” and may direct “a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.”
As we settle into the second Trump era, we’re also seeing the return of the strangest things becoming a controversy thanks to a presidential post on Truth Social.
The latest of these is a post declaring that a batch of pardons signed by President Biden during his final days in office are “VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.”
Read the op-ed here.
Nothing contained in this blog is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Pacific Research Institute or as an attempt to thwart or aid the passage of any legislation.