Dozens of executive orders signed by former President Joe Biden were authorized with identical autopen signatures — raising crucial questions about whether he was fully aware of what he was signing, critics say.
The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project uncovered the situation, prompting Biden detractors such as Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey to suggest it could be used to challenge the legitimacy of orders that the 82-year-old former president signed, especially given the concerns about his cognition.
“I am demanding the DOJ investigate whether President Biden’s cognitive decline allowed unelected staff to push through radical policy without his knowing approval,” Bailey said.
“If true, these executive orders, pardons, and all other actions are unconstitutional and legally void.”
One of the autopen-signed orders from Biden was an August 2022 directive meant to safeguard abortion access during emergency situations, Heritage said.
Another was a December 2024 order to close government offices Jan. 9, 2025, to honor late President Jimmy Carter.
The Post conducted a random brief scan itself of about three dozen signatures of executive orders in the Federal Register from President Trump, former President Barack Obama and Biden at various times in their presidencies.
All three men’s different signatures did not appear to change, although The Post’s review was briefer and less comprehensive than the Heritage Foundation’s.
Autopen signatures are produced by machine instead of being done by hand. Scores of presidents dating back to at least Harry Truman are believed to have leaned on the modern autopen.
“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 divulged examples of Biden’s signatures on two executive orders that it surmised came from autopen and contrasted that with an image of his signature on the letter announcing he was pulling out of the 2024 presidential contest.
Biden’s signature on the two executive orders essentially looked identical, while the signature on the letter about withdrawing from the 2024 race had slight differences, including the lack of “Jr.” at the end of his name. It was simply written as “J.R. Biden.”
Biden had been seen engaged in public signing ceremonies on numerous occasions throughout his presidency. It remains unclear exactly how much he used autopen.
Reps for Biden did not respond to Post requests for comment.
In a jab at Biden’s cognitive state, the Oversight Project chided that “whoever controlled the autopen controlled the presidency.”
Questions about Biden’s mental acuity dogged his time in office. Capping off his presidency at age 82, Biden became the oldest president in US history, though Trump, 78, is on track to top him by several months.
Biden had a tendancy for public faux pas in which he’d fumble his words and appear to lose his sense of direction at times.
During his travels, Biden started to use a shorter flight of stairs to board Air Force One rather than the traditional 18-foot staircase.
His aides and allies initially denied concerns about his mental state and argued that he was more than up to the task.
But in late June, when he squared off against Trump on the debate stage, appearing stone-faced, mouth agape with a raspy voice while often losing his train of thought, concerns about his potential infirmity reached a fever pitch.
A Democratic revolt quickly erupted, and within just over three weeks, Biden bowed out of the race.
“There are profound reasons to suspect that Biden’s staff and political allies exploited his mental decline to issue purported presidential orders without his knowing approval,” Bailey wrote in a letter to the DOJ watchdog last week.
Bailey cited House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) accusations that Biden privately forgot about executive action he had taken on natural gas during a conversation the two had.
Concerns about presidents’ use of autopen have swirled for some time.
Former President George W. Bush had previously tasked the Justice Department with assessing the constitutionality of autopen, and the government’s lawyers concluded it was legal.
Bush decided not to use autopen because of concerns that it could be challenged, his administration officials told ABC News.
But his successor, Obama, 63, was also known to have used the autopen for key documents such as his signing of a 2013 fiscal cliff compromise bill.
