What is an autopen signature and why is Trump accusing Biden of using one?

While attending the G8 Summit in France in May 2011, a major piece of legislation reached Barack Obama’s desk in the Oval Office.

Invoking national security concerns, the former president authorized an aide in Washington to use an autopen to affix his signature to a bill extending three provisions of the Patriot Act.

It marked the first reported time a U.S. president had a mechanical device to sign a bill into law. The White House pointed to an existing 29-page opinion commissioned by the Department of Justice claiming its use was legal.

Almost 14 years later, the autopen is back making headlines after President Donald Trump accused his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden of using the mechanical device to sign pardoning documents, rather than doing so by hand. Trump claimed, without providing evidence, that Biden had no knowledge or approval of the documents.

On Monday morning, Trump said that Biden’s pardons are “void” and those he granted clemency to – ranging from members of the January 6 House select committee to the the former president’s own family – would be subject to investigation “at the highest level.”

But what is an autopen, and are Trump’s attacks against Biden being undermined by his own alleged autosignatures?

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An autopen is a device designed to replicate a handwritten signature, without the direct involvement of a human.

The individual's signature is digitally recorded and stored and a robotic arm holding a pen or pencil creates a near-exact replica of the signature on paper. Only a well-trained eye could spot the difference between a hand-written signature and a well-done autosignature.

Presidents have signed documents using signature copying devices since Thomas Jefferson used a machine known as a polygraph in 1804, according to the National Museum of American History. He is believed to have called it “the finest invention of the present age.”

The first commercially successful autopen was not developed until 1942 by Robert M. De Shazo Jr, when it “quickly gained popularity in the government,” according to a Facebook post by the official National Park Service for The White House and President's Park last year.

The president has spent several days berating Biden for his alleged autopen use.

On Friday, he told reporters at the White House that the Democrat was “grossly incompetent” and a day later he wrote on Truth Social: “The person who was the real President during the Biden years was the person who controlled the Autopen!”

The president also trolled Biden in another Truth Social post on Sunday with a meme replacing his official portrait with an autopen mimicking his signature.

Trump appeared to seize on reports from the Oversight Project, a self-described investigative arm of the right-wing think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation.

Last week, the group challenged the legitimacy of the orders signed by Biden claiming in a spelling mistake-laden X post that that an “autopen signature” was used across almost “every document” it could find.

The exact number of documents reviewed was not immediately clear, however, the Oversight Project shared three examples of Biden’s signature on official documents.

Fox News claimed that it examined more than 20 executive orders signed by Biden between 2021 and 2024 “at random” and found each had the same signature.

CNN, however, claims the machine’s use in the Biden administration was said to be rare with the White House often going to great lengths to ensure that the former president physically signed bills. This included Biden signing a $40 billion Ukraine aid package while in South Korea in 2022 and a 2022 bill to avert a government shutdown while on vacation in St. Croix in the Caribbean.

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An examination of President Donald Trump’s executive orders during his first and second administrations found “the signatures were also the same,” the outlet said.

Twenty-five of Trump's signatures on the Federal Register’s website from across both terms also found signature matched, according to the Daily Mail’s analysis.

An internal memo by Trump Staff Secretary William Scharf described the Trump White House as having more stringent rules around autopen use than other administrations.

“Our practice around autopen usage is far more restrictive than most previous administrations. We do not use the autopen for documents that exercise the powers of the Presidency,” Scharf wrote according to the memo seen by the New York Post Thursday.

He later added: “We will occasionally use the autopen when a single document requires multiple presidential signatures, or when multiple copies of a single document require signing, but only after the President has personally signed off and only at his direction.”

The White House didn’t respond to The Independent’s request for more information about Trump’s alleged autopen use last week.

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Multiple iterations of the autopen have been used by presidents to sign a raft of official documents.

The 33rd U.S. President Harry Truman has been cited as the first president to use the autopen, while Gerald Ford publicly acknowledged his use of the machine.

In 1968, Lyndon Johnson allowed photographs of his autopen while he was in office, which followed a front page splash in the National Enquirer titled: “One of the best-kept secrets in Washington: The robot that sits in for the president.”

Obama again reportedly used autopen in January 2013 while signing the extension to former president George W. Bush’s tax cuts while on vacation in Hawaii.

Bush himself allegedly avoided using autopen over fear of legal concerns. However, he directed an autopen to be used to sign legislation for a one-week funding extension for the Federal Aviation Administration in May 2024 while he was traveling in San Francisco, according to CNN.