Biden's use of an autopen on official documents raises questions from critics

Many executive orders signed by former President Joseph R. Biden were approved with an autopen device, prompting questions from detractors about whether Mr. Biden was fully mindful of the documents he was signing when he was president.

The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project first found the circumstances related to Mr. Biden’s use of the autopen that led to Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey asking about the legitimacy of executive orders the former president, 82, signed, given concerns about his cognitive decline in recent years.

“I am demanding the DOJ investigate whether President Biden’s cognitive decline allowed unelected staff to push through radical policy without his knowing approval,” Mr. Bailey said.

The Washington Times reached out to a representative for Mr. Biden.

Autopen signatures are created by machine as opposed to being done by hand. Many presidents going back over half a century are believed to have leaned on the modern autopen.

Heritage’s Oversight Project investigators say that to determine whether then-President Biden actually ordered the signature of relevant legal documents, or if he even had the mental capacity to, they must first determine who controlled the autopen and what checks there were in place.

The investigators noted the time when Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, retold a story about Mr. Biden not remembering that he signed an executive order pausing LNG exports.

“So, who signed it? For investigators to determine whether then-President Biden actually ordered the signature of relevant legal documents, or if he even had the mental capacity to, they must first determine who controlled the autopen and what checks there were in place,” investigators said.

“We gathered every document we could find with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency,” the Oversight Project said last week.

“All used the same autopen signature except for the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the race last year.”

The Oversight Project showed two samples of Mr. Biden’s signatures from separate executive orders that it gathered came from autopen and contrasted that with an image of his signature on the letter announcing he was withdrawing from the 2024 presidential election.

His signature on the two executive orders appears identical, while the signature on the letter about leaving the 2024 election had some differences. This included the lack of a “Jr.” at the end of his name because he signed it only as “J.R. Biden.”