{"id":56452,"date":"2025-12-03T13:34:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T13:34:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/trump-declares-all-biden-s-autopen-pardons-void-legal-experts-push-back\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T13:33:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T13:33:36","slug":"trump-declares-all-biden-s-autopen-pardons-void-legal-experts-push-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/trump-declares-all-biden-s-autopen-pardons-void-legal-experts-push-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump declares all Biden\u2019s \u201cautopen\u201d pardons void; legal experts push back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump made the declaration in a post on his Truth Social media platform, saying recipients of any pardon, commutation or other legal document signed by autopen should consider them \u201cfully and completely terminated\u201d and \u201cof no legal effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The autopen is a device historically used by U.S. presidents to replicate their signatures for high\u2011volume or ceremonial paperwork, a practice adopted by presidents of both major parties.<\/p>\n

According to law professors such as Bernadette Meyler (Stanford Law School) and Mark Osler (University of St. Thomas School of Law), there is \u201cabsolutely no constitutional or legal basis\u201d for a sitting president to retroactively revoke a predecessor\u2019s pardons simply because they were autopen\u2011signed. <\/p>\n

Another expert, Brian Kalt of Michigan State University College of Law, said that any attempt to invalidate pardons would require a court and only a court to declare them invalid, which would demand proof that Biden did not authorize the signatures.<\/p>\n

It is not publicly known whether Biden actually used an autopen for all pardons or commutations and so far, no evidence has surfaced to confirm that.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Trump is no stranger to clemency powers: since taking office a second time in January 2025, he has issued dozens of pardons and commutations including for high\u2011profile figures such as former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez. <\/p>\n

\"U.S.<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he is \u201cterminating\u201d all documents, including pardons and commutations that he claims Biden signed using an autopen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":2000098566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[201],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-56452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-rania-umutoni"],"bylines":[{"id":201,"name":"Rania Umutoni","slug":"rania-umutoni","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":139}],"contributors":[{"id":201,"name":"Rania Umutoni","slug":"rania-umutoni","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":139}],"featured_image":{"id":2000098566,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2025-11-28t013358z_2038624148_rc2c5iab8ywf_rtrmadp_3_usa-thanksgiving-trump-1200x800.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2025-11-28t013358z_2038624148_rc2c5iab8ywf_rtrmadp_3_usa-thanksgiving-trump-1200x800.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2025-11-28t013358z_2038624148_rc2c5iab8ywf_rtrmadp_3_usa-thanksgiving-trump-1200x800.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2025-11-28t013358z_2038624148_rc2c5iab8ywf_rtrmadp_3_usa-thanksgiving-trump-1200x800.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2025-11-28t013358z_2038624148_rc2c5iab8ywf_rtrmadp_3_usa-thanksgiving-trump-1200x800.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2025-11-28t013358z_2038624148_rc2c5iab8ywf_rtrmadp_3_usa-thanksgiving-trump-1200x800.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000098566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56452"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=56452"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=56452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}