It’s always fascinating to see legal opinions by a non-judge attorney (for example the DOJ or Office of Legal Counsel - who are merely advisors to the president) trotted out as legally binding authority. The Supreme Court needs to weigh in on the legality of autopen use particularly in light of the situation we had where the president had dementia and was not legally competent to sign anything during on of his frequent “bad days”.
Yes, that is a major problem. Instead of following the law, we have people taking the law into their own hands, committing an act, then rewriting the law to justify what they did. If a person wants to be that aggressive with their actions, they should ask first, rather than doing the act and asking forgiveness after the fact, and base their actions on wordplay.
Great breakdown, Greg. Biden advisor Tom Donilon testified that he would receive a million bonus on top of $4 million salary if they win reelection. Might help to see a timeline of which signatures are autopen and whether they can be declared null and void.
Regardless of the autopen never in our history have pardons been preemptively given to people that have not been charged with crimes. That says it all!
The pardon of Richard Nixon (officially, Proclamation 4311) was a presidential proclamation issued by Gerald Ford, the president of the United States, on September 8, 1974, granting a full and unconditional pardon to Richard Nixon, his predecessor, for any crimes that he might have committed against the United States as president.
After Ford left the White House in 1977, he privately justified his pardon of Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of Burdick v. United States, a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court case where the dictum stated that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and that its acceptance carries a confession of guilt.
Exactly right! This is being skirted because this administration wants to have the power to issue “pre-emptive pardons” when its time comes. Everyone, Republican or Democrat, wants to be shielded from their illegal actions.
As David Wardle points out, that's not correct. It's a bit pedantic but Biden's purported pardons are unique because the people pardoned weren't even under investigation or indictment, however. The only other times that has happened previously were blanket pardons such as the one Jimmy Carter issued for Vietnam-era draft evaders but in those cases it was for unknown people who could be convicted of a specific crime.
That pardon is in clear tension with the President's constitutional responsibility to see that the laws be faithfully executed. Indeed any pardon of individuals not actually charged and convicted might be.
I particularly like that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and that its acceptance carries a confession of guilt. Also no ability to plead the 5th in response to questioning.
I could make the case that if the President specifically authorizes something, say via an email or other written communication, then he need not sign his actual signature. Having said that, we have a long history of requiring an actual signature on all kinds of things. Not that long ago if you signed a check without your middle name or initial and that was the name on the account, the check would be voidable. In the real estate industry, notaries are still used to make sure the person signing is the actual person. Only recently have other forms of proof than an actual ink signature has been allowed (and they have other features to ensure the person is who they say). Finally, I worked as staffer in Congress from 1995-2001. We would never have thought to use the auto-pen to sign anything other than congratulatory letters. It would seem to me that lawyers in the Bush and Obama administrations opened the door to playing fast and loose with the auto-pen and now we have Biden staff divining the intent of their senile boss and signing all kinds of things. I wonder if they used it to sign their own bonus checks? If it wasn't so sad and if SNL was anything like what it once was, I would say there is good auto-pen skit waiting to be written.
If a president is senile, he probably won't know what he is signing even if you put a piece of paper in front of him.
That said, given the impact of a presidential signature, in the future there needs to be a clear paper trail (audio trail, whatever) demonstrating that the president knowingly authorized the use of the autopen. The autopen is too open for abuse without this.
Perhaps autopen signed legislation should have a special seal also affixed and serially numbered to point to the decision folder contents or other predicate evidence that use of the autopen was valid.
What is to stop every outgoing administration from issuing a preemptive blanket pardon to anyone and everyone who ever worked in that administration? This would put every member of every administration beyond the reach of the law. One solution might be to go ahead and prosecute alleged wrongdoings regardless of pardon status. If Dr. Fauci, for example, did something criminal, prosecute him. Let it go to trial. Let the evidence come out. Let the courts decide on his guilt or innocence. If found guilty, he could then exert his pardon status to avoid sentencing, but at least the truth would have come out and Fauci, (for example), would henceforth be publicly known as a criminal who was pardoned. Or, conversely, he might be able to prove his innocence in court. But treat the pardons as completely irrelevant prior to the sentencing phase.
Prior to evidence of Presidential approval, there is no pardon. In other words, a written pardon cannot be approved by a President retroactively. Evidence of a verbal pardon, (written or oral), has to occur before any pardon is "born".
Pardons don't need to be in writing, but there does need to be valid evidence that they were rendered by the President himself, (as in the example of the hypothetical Rose Garden speech mentioned in the article). The "moment of conception" for a pardon is when the President evidences that he has decided to do so, (not the moment in which the Autopen signs the name.)
Biden claiming in a July 2025 ten-minute telephone interview that he made all the decisions is moot, as by then Biden was no longer President. [and for that matter, this being a telephone interview, even then it would not have been possible for the NYT to judge Biden's cognitive competency, as others in the room may have been telling Biden what to say.]
It doesn't help at all that the persons welding the Autopen are refusing to say who told them whom to pardon, since without knowing who told the Autopen user to sign each individual pardon, it would be impossible to trace the order to do so backwards to the original rendering evidence of Biden's deciding to grant each pardon.
So, yes, perhaps Bondi should prosecute suspected wrongdoings, and if the parties are found guilty, let the courts sort out who did or did not receive a valid pardon.
I think a pardon, like a claim of double jeopardy, would be adjudicated before any trial. And if the analogy to double jeopardy holds, any adverse decision would be immediately appealable. The rationale is that double jeopardy is a bar not merely to conviction but to having to stand trial--being put twice in jeopardy. My guess is that pardons would be treated the same way.
"President Trump posts on Truth Social that whomever controlled the autopen was the real president during the Biden Administration."
"whoever controlled"
I post this not to be a pain in the butt but because it's become so common for people to misuse "whomever" that I hate to see it as a typo on your excellent newsfeed.
Well. Let's put it another way. I cannot believe there are actually people who will rush to correct others' errors while not even bothering to ascertain the identity of the person they intend to show up, and addressing their officious comments to someone who did not make the error. Hubris smacking itself in the face, IMO.
By comparison with the above, I think I was fairly diplomatic.
So, moving on, I'll just end this back and forth by saying: as a writer, I welcome and invite copyediting corrections, especially about typos, and so does any writer who cares about the published version of his or her prose.
I.E -- it HELPS Racket to have an opportunity to correct typos.
Or . . . .we could use your approach and let the typos stand. That way, people who don't like Racket can use those mistakes to denigrate Matt and his platform. Which is what haters love to do: take the smallest mistake and elevate it into a "moral critique."
If you want to continue this, first try to understand what I meant by "being diplomatic," instead of repeating your original insult. But if insulting people you don't know, by making rash assumptions about their thinking and motives, then be my guest!
And yes, there's a typo in that reply. It should read "If insulting people you don't know, by making rash assumptions about their thinking and motives, is what you like to do, then be my guest!"
My initial comment contained no insult, unless you consider it an insult to point out the obvious fact that you had not checked the byline, demonstrated by your correcting a person who had not made the error. You upbraided me for want of diplomacy; I was giving a potential much less diplomatic response.
In other words, the second comment was not my own thought, but an exemplar. And I do think that, if one is given to correcting others, one should be at pains to correctly address the correction.
"... a magnificent replica of Biden was erected by the establishment with the full complicity of the media, and it replaced, in the information sphere, the increasingly feeble, always spiteful, intellectually muddled real man."
"....Biden’s appearances were carefully staged in the true sense of the word: They avoided reality and promoted a fictional character."
"I see no reason to pity Biden. He perpetrated a hoax on the American people and has had the misfortune of being found out. The punishment will fit the crime: humiliation for heedless vanity."
"..... Biden will end up detested by the very elites whose good opinion he has groveled all his life to obtain. Failure, this time, will be fixed and final, like destiny itself. He will not bear these blows stoically. I expect he’ll spend whatever time remains to him as a 21st-century version of King Lear—fallen, baffled, victim of his own fatal misjudgments, an old man lost on the heath and railing at the storm."
“The report reaches a conclusion that reads like a judicial ruling: Absent evidence that Biden made executive decisions, ‘the Committee deems those actions taken through use of the autopen as void.’”
Whether any part of Congress has the constitutional authority to declare presidential acts invalid by asserting they were not actually presidential acts is one question.
A second issue is that this formulation is attempting to shift the burden of proof. It’s like saying unless you prove to me that you ate your dinner that is no longer on your plate then I will have the right to conclude that you gave it to someone else. Or unless you prove you didn’t murder this dead child in front of me then I will justifiably prosecute you for it.
If there is no evidence that Biden made the decisions to sign the docs that were auto-penned--via a paper trail--then there is no evidence that the auto-signatures were valid.
Of course, common sense would tell you that probably no one would want to make the decision to pardon his son, Hunter, more than Biden, right? Or are you another forgoer of common sense?
And that distinction must have been appreciated by some in the White House or why bother? Out of curiosity, how does that signature compare to the autopen version? Shakier, evidence of halts or retries? Whiteout clean ups?
Right, when dealing with folks who are intent on winning the burden of proof is always on you, never on them. And often "winners" are not capable apparently of doing their own research.
If the only case he had used an autopen had been his own son's pardon this discussion probably wouldn't be happening at all. You're attempting to win an argument that isn't actually taking place, which is why I asked you to address the argument that is.
Perhaps you could point me to the signatures that the Committee proved that Biden didn't approve of or which bills or pardons were made without his actual knowledge. Looking at the Committee report, I don't see many actual things pointed to, it's more like they just want the whole 4 years reset.
Yes but, to protect against these unilateral attempts to invalidate presidential acts there has to be a preexisting written legal standard that there must be a paper trail or the act is invalid without a physical signature, not just an assertion that the act is invalid because there’s no paper trail. And it must be constitutional.
Logically yes it makes sense that there should be a paper trail or some variation of it like a statement by the president in the Rose Garden but right now the idea is only in play with arguments for and against. That’s not enough in my opinion. The presumption of validity should remain with the president and the burden should be on those seeking to invalidate (and I think it IS on them) his apparent signature.
Want some ranch dressing on that word salad? 'Cuz nothing you said makes any sense or in any way changes the common sense assumption that the use of the auto-pen must--must-- be accompanied with a document trail with a clear chain of custody.
Show me the law or regulation that states that. So far, I haven't seen it. I think there are serious problems with a President who is unfit for office giving pardons, but unless there is actual laws or regulations specifying there must be a document trail (or official announcement by the President in the Rose garden for example) then you are just making assumptions not backed up by law.
"...shall sign..." seems pretty clear, particularly given the state of technology at the time of the Founders. By custom the document presented for signature or veto is physically transported from the Capitol to the White House. Why not just install an autopen in the Capitol basement and give it an email address? Seems like the next logical step.
Because we know that Biden was not mentally competent to run for a second term, we can question whether he was competent to finish the first one. A key bipartisan goal might be to avoid this ambiguity in the future.
I don't disagree, but that doesn't mean that a declaration that Biden's presidential acts are invalid itself becomes valid because the party asserting the fact declaims that the presidential act in question is not substantiated by supporting evidence. The burden of proof is on the accuser (this should be elementary), particularly when it is at best unclear whether a paper trail is even required to support the use of an autopen.
Indeed, it looks like the way to get to bottom of things is to for immunity to some folks taking the 5th and get to the bottom of it with the evidence you suggest. And it might be that a full accounting is necessary to avoid this in the future…
I don’t buy your argument, but I am glad you’re pushing back on the presumption that Biden’s signatures were invalid.
A lot of these definitions and concepts are fluid. For instance, when the Constitution was written, back in that time, a pardon was an action that was done for someone who had been convicted of something.
Now, we have “pre-emptive pardons”, which seems a logical contradiction to me, since we’re supposed to have an assumption of innocence until proven guilty. But we don’t, as many people interpret “taking the Fifth” as an admission of guilt, which it isn’t. In my mind, this is a bigger issue than the mechanics of the autopen.
George Washington issued a blanket pardon for anyone who committed certain crimes during the Whiskey Rebellion, and other Presidents have issued other pardons (Carter's pardon of Vietnam-era draft evaders is one) that were effective for people who had not been convicted. There have also been individual pardons issued before conviction such as the one GHWB (IIRC) gave to Caspar Weinberger.
However, the pardons Biden is purported to have given to Fauci, Liz Cheney, and others are unique because they are the first pardons given to specific people for unspecified crimes for which there have not even been investigations or indictments. In all previous cases, such as Carter's draft evader pardon, the pardon was of an unidentified group who might be convicted of a specific crime, or the crimes for which a specific person had been investigated or indicted.
That’s the problem with illogical precedents. How did Washington justify pardons for unconvicted crimes, or was it a special case for a rebellion? I remember Carter’s action as an amnesty, not a pardon, but I could be wrong. Amnesty wasn’t any of his enumerated powers as president, at any rate.
Yes I don’t like pardons either. The pardon power was bound to lead to where we are, which is putting the president in a position to neutralize or nullify the law when it works a result he doesn’t want.
Yes, a bad option. Instead of challenging dubious pardons, the Republicans are going after the autopen. My thought is they want to reserve the right to dubious pardons for themselves.
Hitler had a powerful command of the facts of his European warmaking, down to the minutia of weapons manufacture. He used this to direct (and occasionally humiliate) his generals when needed. If Trump is Hitler your comment might be hard to defend.
"Whether any part of Congress has the constitutional authority to declare presidential acts invalid by asserting they were not actually presidential acts is one question."
Wrong. A "declaration" by Congress is nothing. It is like declaring a month a special month - e.g., Pride, Black History. It is a meaningless statement with no legally binding effect.
What WILL matter is when one of the pardoned is prosecuted for a crime covered by the scope of the pardon. The Supreme Court will then declare the law. We should start with Fauci.
It's not attempting to shift the burden of proof, because that burden has always been on the signer. That is the entire reason a signature is required in the first place, as otherwise a president or anyone else approving a document could simply assert verbally later that they had approved it on any particular date, or not, and there would be no way of knowing.
The signature is supposed to be the proof and so any situation in which that proof can be called into question legitimately, and this one certainly counts, means the entire process is broken down. There should not even be such a thing as an autopen to begin with, it's honestly absurd and dysfunctional that the USA can get itself into this situation.
That’s clever but I don’t find it persuasive. It ignores that presidential acts have a presumption of validity supported by the long-standing interpretive background related to the use of the autopen, and the need to prevent cynical end runs around the law. I’m quite confident that any court except maybe the U.S. Supreme Court would reject this kind of assertion without sufficient evidence coming from any party who sued on the basis of it, especially from Congress, as an attempt to infringe a core executive function.
That said, I don’t disagree that there should not be autopens, but I also don’t think that some equivalent objective indication of presidential intent to sign a given document in lieu of an actual physical signature should be regarded as insufficient to legally constitute a presidential signature. This seems to be the standard already and the contrary idea is pedantic and too ceremoniously formal.
Autopen is a half measure as compared with actual signing which often involves many pens, handed out to supporters and incontrovertible evidence of Presidential intent. It seems reasonable that there should be producible backup for autopen use to fill in the witnessing that an actual signing usually provides.
Unless I am reading this post incorrectly - its' underlying logic is uniquely dumb.
When handling evidence, there is a concept called "chain of custody" which is used to confirm that the evidence presented at a trial is the evidence collected at a crime scene.
Similarly, signatures are required on contracts and other documents (i.e. pardons) to prove the person with the authority to approve the action actually approved it.
In lieu of a wet ink signature, folks have used an autopen. But the underlying issue is there must be some level of proof that an authorized signer approved use of the autopen. If there is no proof - chaos ensues.
That’s all true, but in the meantime, you cannot allow cynical and highly interested political actors to unilaterally invalidate a presumptively valid legal act by simple assertion when there is no clear standard by which that act may be invalidated.
Tell me again what presumptively legal is, because my read of the situation is that it is presumptively illegal.
Also laughable is invalidation due to "cynical and highly interested political actors". Tell me again of any politician who is not "cynical and highly interested".
There should be no autopen. If legislation can’t get signed why you’re screwing off in Hawaii or dicking the dog in another country then it waits until the president gets back. Trump can kill the autopen if he wishes. The fact you can’t trace anything to anyone is how they created the “politburo” presidency. Nobody knows nothing and there isn’t a shred of paperwork putting anyone in the crosshairs. Biden will
just say he approved it all and you’ll never be able to prove differently. This will be a nothing burger and to make sure it can’t ever be questioned again get rid of it altogether. They can have a stamp for fan mail or secretaries can forge it like they used to do. There’s enough fuckery already in Govt. let’s make this one less.
Did not know that the initial use of the autopen was to sign an extension of the patriot act.
All the reason I need to call use of the autopen unconstitutional, and potentially treasonous.
If SCOTUS wants to agree and open up actual binding criminal charges for Obama, Trump, and Biden, so be it. Roast the executive branch until the flames whittle down into a statesman position with military power outside the US borders.
It’s always fascinating to see legal opinions by a non-judge attorney (for example the DOJ or Office of Legal Counsel - who are merely advisors to the president) trotted out as legally binding authority. The Supreme Court needs to weigh in on the legality of autopen use particularly in light of the situation we had where the president had dementia and was not legally competent to sign anything during on of his frequent “bad days”.
They will get a chance when Bondi prosecutes one of Biden's autopen pardons for covered matters. Fauci would be a good test case.
Yes, that is a major problem. Instead of following the law, we have people taking the law into their own hands, committing an act, then rewriting the law to justify what they did. If a person wants to be that aggressive with their actions, they should ask first, rather than doing the act and asking forgiveness after the fact, and base their actions on wordplay.
Great breakdown, Greg. Biden advisor Tom Donilon testified that he would receive a million bonus on top of $4 million salary if they win reelection. Might help to see a timeline of which signatures are autopen and whether they can be declared null and void.
Maybe Giorgia Meloni should have let Biden wonder off towards the cliffs of Deauville.
Lol, Amen! All the things that we would like a do-over on!!
$4 mil bonus
Regardless of the autopen never in our history have pardons been preemptively given to people that have not been charged with crimes. That says it all!
Looking back it is incredible that what Nixon actually did pales in comparison to the Obama/Biden/Clinton intelligence operation.
The pardon of Richard Nixon (officially, Proclamation 4311) was a presidential proclamation issued by Gerald Ford, the president of the United States, on September 8, 1974, granting a full and unconditional pardon to Richard Nixon, his predecessor, for any crimes that he might have committed against the United States as president.
After Ford left the White House in 1977, he privately justified his pardon of Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of Burdick v. United States, a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court case where the dictum stated that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and that its acceptance carries a confession of guilt.
Exactly right! This is being skirted because this administration wants to have the power to issue “pre-emptive pardons” when its time comes. Everyone, Republican or Democrat, wants to be shielded from their illegal actions.
As David Wardle points out, that's not correct. It's a bit pedantic but Biden's purported pardons are unique because the people pardoned weren't even under investigation or indictment, however. The only other times that has happened previously were blanket pardons such as the one Jimmy Carter issued for Vietnam-era draft evaders but in those cases it was for unknown people who could be convicted of a specific crime.
That pardon is in clear tension with the President's constitutional responsibility to see that the laws be faithfully executed. Indeed any pardon of individuals not actually charged and convicted might be.
I particularly like that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and that its acceptance carries a confession of guilt. Also no ability to plead the 5th in response to questioning.
I could make the case that if the President specifically authorizes something, say via an email or other written communication, then he need not sign his actual signature. Having said that, we have a long history of requiring an actual signature on all kinds of things. Not that long ago if you signed a check without your middle name or initial and that was the name on the account, the check would be voidable. In the real estate industry, notaries are still used to make sure the person signing is the actual person. Only recently have other forms of proof than an actual ink signature has been allowed (and they have other features to ensure the person is who they say). Finally, I worked as staffer in Congress from 1995-2001. We would never have thought to use the auto-pen to sign anything other than congratulatory letters. It would seem to me that lawyers in the Bush and Obama administrations opened the door to playing fast and loose with the auto-pen and now we have Biden staff divining the intent of their senile boss and signing all kinds of things. I wonder if they used it to sign their own bonus checks? If it wasn't so sad and if SNL was anything like what it once was, I would say there is good auto-pen skit waiting to be written.
If a president is senile, he probably won't know what he is signing even if you put a piece of paper in front of him.
That said, given the impact of a presidential signature, in the future there needs to be a clear paper trail (audio trail, whatever) demonstrating that the president knowingly authorized the use of the autopen. The autopen is too open for abuse without this.
Perhaps autopen signed legislation should have a special seal also affixed and serially numbered to point to the decision folder contents or other predicate evidence that use of the autopen was valid.
This is much ado about nothing.
When you have an all-knowing politburo, who needs voter ID, who needs wet ink signatures?
What could go wrong?
What is to stop every outgoing administration from issuing a preemptive blanket pardon to anyone and everyone who ever worked in that administration? This would put every member of every administration beyond the reach of the law. One solution might be to go ahead and prosecute alleged wrongdoings regardless of pardon status. If Dr. Fauci, for example, did something criminal, prosecute him. Let it go to trial. Let the evidence come out. Let the courts decide on his guilt or innocence. If found guilty, he could then exert his pardon status to avoid sentencing, but at least the truth would have come out and Fauci, (for example), would henceforth be publicly known as a criminal who was pardoned. Or, conversely, he might be able to prove his innocence in court. But treat the pardons as completely irrelevant prior to the sentencing phase.
Pardons must be accepted, thus acknowledging guilt. Make that a formal requirement with an accompanying public document.
Prior to evidence of Presidential approval, there is no pardon. In other words, a written pardon cannot be approved by a President retroactively. Evidence of a verbal pardon, (written or oral), has to occur before any pardon is "born".
Pardons don't need to be in writing, but there does need to be valid evidence that they were rendered by the President himself, (as in the example of the hypothetical Rose Garden speech mentioned in the article). The "moment of conception" for a pardon is when the President evidences that he has decided to do so, (not the moment in which the Autopen signs the name.)
Biden claiming in a July 2025 ten-minute telephone interview that he made all the decisions is moot, as by then Biden was no longer President. [and for that matter, this being a telephone interview, even then it would not have been possible for the NYT to judge Biden's cognitive competency, as others in the room may have been telling Biden what to say.]
It doesn't help at all that the persons welding the Autopen are refusing to say who told them whom to pardon, since without knowing who told the Autopen user to sign each individual pardon, it would be impossible to trace the order to do so backwards to the original rendering evidence of Biden's deciding to grant each pardon.
So, yes, perhaps Bondi should prosecute suspected wrongdoings, and if the parties are found guilty, let the courts sort out who did or did not receive a valid pardon.
That Rose Garden speech approach is sounding better and better.
Great point! Start the investigation and make them step forward and acknowledge guilt publically.
I like the idea. It makes a better sense than preemptive pardons without identifying the crime.
I think a pardon, like a claim of double jeopardy, would be adjudicated before any trial. And if the analogy to double jeopardy holds, any adverse decision would be immediately appealable. The rationale is that double jeopardy is a bar not merely to conviction but to having to stand trial--being put twice in jeopardy. My guess is that pardons would be treated the same way.
Well Done Racket News! We rely on you to provide facts and information that MSM has no interest in reporting. Keep up the good work!
Between this and the Arctic Frost revelations, the whole Biden Presidency is being exposed as a totalitarian cabal around a rotting husk.
Matt, typo alert:
"President Trump posts on Truth Social that whomever controlled the autopen was the real president during the Biden Administration."
"whoever controlled"
I post this not to be a pain in the butt but because it's become so common for people to misuse "whomever" that I hate to see it as a typo on your excellent newsfeed.
You're correct. I appreciate it.
Greg
Greg. Not Matt. Surprised how often people don't look at the byline.
Surprised how often people don't understand "being diplomatic."
Well. Let's put it another way. I cannot believe there are actually people who will rush to correct others' errors while not even bothering to ascertain the identity of the person they intend to show up, and addressing their officious comments to someone who did not make the error. Hubris smacking itself in the face, IMO.
By comparison with the above, I think I was fairly diplomatic.
Matt's the editor isn't he? Last authoritative stop on the way to newsprint.
You didn't understand my reply to your reply.
So, moving on, I'll just end this back and forth by saying: as a writer, I welcome and invite copyediting corrections, especially about typos, and so does any writer who cares about the published version of his or her prose.
I.E -- it HELPS Racket to have an opportunity to correct typos.
Or . . . .we could use your approach and let the typos stand. That way, people who don't like Racket can use those mistakes to denigrate Matt and his platform. Which is what haters love to do: take the smallest mistake and elevate it into a "moral critique."
If you want to continue this, first try to understand what I meant by "being diplomatic," instead of repeating your original insult. But if insulting people you don't know, by making rash assumptions about their thinking and motives, then be my guest!
And yes, there's a typo in that reply. It should read "If insulting people you don't know, by making rash assumptions about their thinking and motives, is what you like to do, then be my guest!"
My initial comment contained no insult, unless you consider it an insult to point out the obvious fact that you had not checked the byline, demonstrated by your correcting a person who had not made the error. You upbraided me for want of diplomacy; I was giving a potential much less diplomatic response.
In other words, the second comment was not my own thought, but an exemplar. And I do think that, if one is given to correcting others, one should be at pains to correctly address the correction.
If Emily makes an error, don't blame Jennifer.
"... a magnificent replica of Biden was erected by the establishment with the full complicity of the media, and it replaced, in the information sphere, the increasingly feeble, always spiteful, intellectually muddled real man."
"....Biden’s appearances were carefully staged in the true sense of the word: They avoided reality and promoted a fictional character."
"I see no reason to pity Biden. He perpetrated a hoax on the American people and has had the misfortune of being found out. The punishment will fit the crime: humiliation for heedless vanity."
"..... Biden will end up detested by the very elites whose good opinion he has groveled all his life to obtain. Failure, this time, will be fixed and final, like destiny itself. He will not bear these blows stoically. I expect he’ll spend whatever time remains to him as a 21st-century version of King Lear—fallen, baffled, victim of his own fatal misjudgments, an old man lost on the heath and railing at the storm."
Martin Gurri
Great work, Greg Collard + Racket. Enjoyed learning the history. Plus, this descriptor:
"...*characters* such as Anthony Fauci..." ☺️
Ill never stop being a paying subscriber. And, btw, im canadian. Thank you MT.
“The report reaches a conclusion that reads like a judicial ruling: Absent evidence that Biden made executive decisions, ‘the Committee deems those actions taken through use of the autopen as void.’”
Whether any part of Congress has the constitutional authority to declare presidential acts invalid by asserting they were not actually presidential acts is one question.
A second issue is that this formulation is attempting to shift the burden of proof. It’s like saying unless you prove to me that you ate your dinner that is no longer on your plate then I will have the right to conclude that you gave it to someone else. Or unless you prove you didn’t murder this dead child in front of me then I will justifiably prosecute you for it.
If there is no evidence that Biden made the decisions to sign the docs that were auto-penned--via a paper trail--then there is no evidence that the auto-signatures were valid.
You dead child analogy is wildly off base.
Of course, common sense would tell you that probably no one would want to make the decision to pardon his son, Hunter, more than Biden, right? Or are you another forgoer of common sense?
Now do all the others.
Yes. The signature on Hunter's has been reported to be by hand.
And that distinction must have been appreciated by some in the White House or why bother? Out of curiosity, how does that signature compare to the autopen version? Shakier, evidence of halts or retries? Whiteout clean ups?
Right, when dealing with folks who are intent on winning the burden of proof is always on you, never on them. And often "winners" are not capable apparently of doing their own research.
If the only case he had used an autopen had been his own son's pardon this discussion probably wouldn't be happening at all. You're attempting to win an argument that isn't actually taking place, which is why I asked you to address the argument that is.
Perhaps you could point me to the signatures that the Committee proved that Biden didn't approve of or which bills or pardons were made without his actual knowledge. Looking at the Committee report, I don't see many actual things pointed to, it's more like they just want the whole 4 years reset.
You're just repeating the logical fallacy
There has to be a paper trail for these auto-pen sigs to be legit... no logical fallacy at all...
Why was there no paper trail? A fair-minded person would ask....
Yes but, to protect against these unilateral attempts to invalidate presidential acts there has to be a preexisting written legal standard that there must be a paper trail or the act is invalid without a physical signature, not just an assertion that the act is invalid because there’s no paper trail. And it must be constitutional.
Logically yes it makes sense that there should be a paper trail or some variation of it like a statement by the president in the Rose Garden but right now the idea is only in play with arguments for and against. That’s not enough in my opinion. The presumption of validity should remain with the president and the burden should be on those seeking to invalidate (and I think it IS on them) his apparent signature.
Want some ranch dressing on that word salad? 'Cuz nothing you said makes any sense or in any way changes the common sense assumption that the use of the auto-pen must--must-- be accompanied with a document trail with a clear chain of custody.
Show me the law or regulation that states that. So far, I haven't seen it. I think there are serious problems with a President who is unfit for office giving pardons, but unless there is actual laws or regulations specifying there must be a document trail (or official announcement by the President in the Rose garden for example) then you are just making assumptions not backed up by law.
"...shall sign..." seems pretty clear, particularly given the state of technology at the time of the Founders. By custom the document presented for signature or veto is physically transported from the Capitol to the White House. Why not just install an autopen in the Capitol basement and give it an email address? Seems like the next logical step.
Because we know that Biden was not mentally competent to run for a second term, we can question whether he was competent to finish the first one. A key bipartisan goal might be to avoid this ambiguity in the future.
I don't disagree, but that doesn't mean that a declaration that Biden's presidential acts are invalid itself becomes valid because the party asserting the fact declaims that the presidential act in question is not substantiated by supporting evidence. The burden of proof is on the accuser (this should be elementary), particularly when it is at best unclear whether a paper trail is even required to support the use of an autopen.
Indeed, it looks like the way to get to bottom of things is to for immunity to some folks taking the 5th and get to the bottom of it with the evidence you suggest. And it might be that a full accounting is necessary to avoid this in the future…
Can the Congress grant immunity? I think the immunity will need to be negotiated with the DoJ. Apparently that's where this investigation is headed.
I don’t buy your argument, but I am glad you’re pushing back on the presumption that Biden’s signatures were invalid.
A lot of these definitions and concepts are fluid. For instance, when the Constitution was written, back in that time, a pardon was an action that was done for someone who had been convicted of something.
Now, we have “pre-emptive pardons”, which seems a logical contradiction to me, since we’re supposed to have an assumption of innocence until proven guilty. But we don’t, as many people interpret “taking the Fifth” as an admission of guilt, which it isn’t. In my mind, this is a bigger issue than the mechanics of the autopen.
George Washington issued a blanket pardon for anyone who committed certain crimes during the Whiskey Rebellion, and other Presidents have issued other pardons (Carter's pardon of Vietnam-era draft evaders is one) that were effective for people who had not been convicted. There have also been individual pardons issued before conviction such as the one GHWB (IIRC) gave to Caspar Weinberger.
However, the pardons Biden is purported to have given to Fauci, Liz Cheney, and others are unique because they are the first pardons given to specific people for unspecified crimes for which there have not even been investigations or indictments. In all previous cases, such as Carter's draft evader pardon, the pardon was of an unidentified group who might be convicted of a specific crime, or the crimes for which a specific person had been investigated or indicted.
That’s the problem with illogical precedents. How did Washington justify pardons for unconvicted crimes, or was it a special case for a rebellion? I remember Carter’s action as an amnesty, not a pardon, but I could be wrong. Amnesty wasn’t any of his enumerated powers as president, at any rate.
Yes I don’t like pardons either. The pardon power was bound to lead to where we are, which is putting the president in a position to neutralize or nullify the law when it works a result he doesn’t want.
Yes, a bad option. Instead of challenging dubious pardons, the Republicans are going after the autopen. My thought is they want to reserve the right to dubious pardons for themselves.
Too late, we just elected another mental incompetent.
You've been reading too much of The Bulwark.
Hitler had a powerful command of the facts of his European warmaking, down to the minutia of weapons manufacture. He used this to direct (and occasionally humiliate) his generals when needed. If Trump is Hitler your comment might be hard to defend.
"Whether any part of Congress has the constitutional authority to declare presidential acts invalid by asserting they were not actually presidential acts is one question."
Wrong. A "declaration" by Congress is nothing. It is like declaring a month a special month - e.g., Pride, Black History. It is a meaningless statement with no legally binding effect.
What WILL matter is when one of the pardoned is prosecuted for a crime covered by the scope of the pardon. The Supreme Court will then declare the law. We should start with Fauci.
It's not attempting to shift the burden of proof, because that burden has always been on the signer. That is the entire reason a signature is required in the first place, as otherwise a president or anyone else approving a document could simply assert verbally later that they had approved it on any particular date, or not, and there would be no way of knowing.
The signature is supposed to be the proof and so any situation in which that proof can be called into question legitimately, and this one certainly counts, means the entire process is broken down. There should not even be such a thing as an autopen to begin with, it's honestly absurd and dysfunctional that the USA can get itself into this situation.
That’s clever but I don’t find it persuasive. It ignores that presidential acts have a presumption of validity supported by the long-standing interpretive background related to the use of the autopen, and the need to prevent cynical end runs around the law. I’m quite confident that any court except maybe the U.S. Supreme Court would reject this kind of assertion without sufficient evidence coming from any party who sued on the basis of it, especially from Congress, as an attempt to infringe a core executive function.
That said, I don’t disagree that there should not be autopens, but I also don’t think that some equivalent objective indication of presidential intent to sign a given document in lieu of an actual physical signature should be regarded as insufficient to legally constitute a presidential signature. This seems to be the standard already and the contrary idea is pedantic and too ceremoniously formal.
Autopen is a half measure as compared with actual signing which often involves many pens, handed out to supporters and incontrovertible evidence of Presidential intent. It seems reasonable that there should be producible backup for autopen use to fill in the witnessing that an actual signing usually provides.
Witness signatures are required om wills in most states. Maybe there's a model in that.
Unless I am reading this post incorrectly - its' underlying logic is uniquely dumb.
When handling evidence, there is a concept called "chain of custody" which is used to confirm that the evidence presented at a trial is the evidence collected at a crime scene.
Similarly, signatures are required on contracts and other documents (i.e. pardons) to prove the person with the authority to approve the action actually approved it.
In lieu of a wet ink signature, folks have used an autopen. But the underlying issue is there must be some level of proof that an authorized signer approved use of the autopen. If there is no proof - chaos ensues.
This isn't that hard of a concept.
That’s all true, but in the meantime, you cannot allow cynical and highly interested political actors to unilaterally invalidate a presumptively valid legal act by simple assertion when there is no clear standard by which that act may be invalidated.
Tell me again what presumptively legal is, because my read of the situation is that it is presumptively illegal.
Also laughable is invalidation due to "cynical and highly interested political actors". Tell me again of any politician who is not "cynical and highly interested".
There should be no autopen. If legislation can’t get signed why you’re screwing off in Hawaii or dicking the dog in another country then it waits until the president gets back. Trump can kill the autopen if he wishes. The fact you can’t trace anything to anyone is how they created the “politburo” presidency. Nobody knows nothing and there isn’t a shred of paperwork putting anyone in the crosshairs. Biden will
just say he approved it all and you’ll never be able to prove differently. This will be a nothing burger and to make sure it can’t ever be questioned again get rid of it altogether. They can have a stamp for fan mail or secretaries can forge it like they used to do. There’s enough fuckery already in Govt. let’s make this one less.
Did not know that the initial use of the autopen was to sign an extension of the patriot act.
All the reason I need to call use of the autopen unconstitutional, and potentially treasonous.
If SCOTUS wants to agree and open up actual binding criminal charges for Obama, Trump, and Biden, so be it. Roast the executive branch until the flames whittle down into a statesman position with military power outside the US borders.