By Meridith McGraw and Annie Linskey
President Trump questioned the validity of pardons granted by President Joe Biden before he left office, signaling that the new administration could move to investigate those given legal immunity by his predecessor.
Any move to investigate or prosecute the individuals pardoned by Biden would mark a significant escalation of Trump’s defiance of longstanding legal norms. It comes after the Trump administration said over the weekend that it had deported alleged Venezuelan gang members under a centuries-old wartime law, despite a court order that temporarily blocked it from doing so.
Trump asserted early Monday morning in a social-media post that Biden’s pardons were “void, vacant, and of no further force of effect” because they were signed with an autopen. Without citing evidence, the president said that the documents weren’t properly explained to Biden and that the staff who used the autopen “may have committed a crime.”
Autopens are robotic machines programmed to imitate signatures and are frequently used by presidents, agency officials and lawmakers to sign correspondence and legal documents.
Past administrations have said documents signed by autopen are legally valid. In 2005, George W. Bush administration legal guidance concluded, “The President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law.”
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