Kerby Anderson

Congress and the Trump administration are currently investigating who ran the U.S. while President Biden was in office. One key element of that investigation involves the use of an autopen. Merrill Matthews provides some historical background to the use of the autopen.

The legacy press doesn’t see this as an important issue. One Associated Press headline reads, “Presidents have used autopens for decades. Now Trump objects to Biden’s use of one.” As someone who reads articles and books on political issues, I wasn’t aware that Presidents routinely used autopens. Of course, they were probably used for letters, invitations, even pictures. But that’s not what we are talking about.

The Constitution (Article 1, Section 7) says: “Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approves, he shall sign it, but if not, he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated.”

That seems clear to me that the president must sign a bill. I even remember stories of legislation being flown to past presidents so they could sign a bill. But Merrill Matthews cites a Deputy Assistant Attorney General who in 2005 argued that the president did not have to personally affix his signature to a bill. Six years later, President Barack Obama took this step when out of the country.

Congress needs to resolve this issue. Does a bill signed by an autopen have the force of law? What about the many presidential pardons supposedly signed by Biden? And what about Biden’s executive orders? A pro-energy group is demanding an investigation into those executive orders that affected their business.