Which Biden executive orders were signed using an autopen and when?
Executive summary
Available reporting does not list a definitive, sourced inventory of which specific Biden executive orders were signed with an autopen or the exact dates those domestic executive orders were autopen-signed; major outlets report claims and disputes over widespread autopen use but note uncertainty about which documents were autopen-signed and when [1] [2] [3]. The Trump administration later announced it would “terminate” documents it alleges were autopen-signed, but legal experts and historical practice call the move legally dubious and note presidents of both parties have long used autopens [2] [1] [3].
1. What reporters say about which orders were signed by autopen — the simple answer
Available sources do not provide a contemporaneous, authoritative list naming individual Biden executive orders and exact dates that were signed by an autopen; outlets say it is “not known” which pardons or orders specifically used an autopen and emphasize uncertainty in the public record [2] [1]. Federal records (the Federal Register) list Biden executive orders by number and date but do not indicate the method of signature in their public postings [4].
2. Claims from the new administration: sweeping termination of autopen-signed acts
President Trump publicly declared he was “terminating” any Biden-era documents he said were signed with an autopen, asserting roughly 92% of Biden’s executive actions fell into that category and calling them “terminated” on social media — a proclamation widely reported and repeated by sympathetic outlets and cited by administration statements [5] [6] [7]. The White House under Trump also ordered reviews and probes into the “circumstances” of supposed autopen use during Biden’s final years [8].
3. Legal and expert pushback: method doesn’t always equal invalidity
Reporting from Reuters, CNN and others quotes legal experts questioning the legal basis for nullifying past presidential acts simply because an autopen was used; the autopen has been treated administratively as a valid mechanism for applying a president’s signature in prior legal settings, and courts generally recognize the validity of mechanically reproduced signatures when used with appropriate authorization [2] [1] [3]. Newsweek and Reuters cite former prosecutors and scholars who say autopen use does not automatically void executive orders or pardons [5] [2].
4. The historical context: autopen is not new and has bipartisan use
Multiple outlets note the autopen’s long White House history — presidents from both parties have used it for high-volume or ceremonial signatures — and that past Justice Department positions have equated mechanically reproduced signatures with a president’s signature for legal purposes [1] [2] [3]. Reporting also documents that Trump himself used batch-signing processes in previous years, complicating partisan arguments that autopen use is uniquely improper [9] [3].
5. Investigations, claims, and the evidentiary gap
House oversight reports and subsequent executive-branch directives under the new administration raised questions about contemporaneous approvals and whether adequate written trace exists for some autopen-signed items; those probes are focused on process and possible abuse rather than producing a definitive public ledger of autopen-signed orders and dates [8] [10]. News outlets emphasize that while investigators have raised concerns, they have not produced conclusive public evidence showing which specific executive orders or pardons were autopen-signed without presidential assent [3] [2].
6. What this means for someone looking for a concrete list
There is no single, publicly available, reliably sourced list in current reporting that maps each Biden executive order to whether and when an autopen was used; federal executive order publications list numbers and dates but not signing method [4]. To get such a list would require internal White House or DOJ documentation that reporters say has not been publicly released or corroborated in the cited coverage [2] [8].
7. Competing motives and how to read claims
Political actors making sweeping claims about autopen use have incentives to delegitimize adversaries’ actions; outlets note the Trump administration’s statements and some Republican investigations frame autopen use as evidence of incapacity or misconduct, while legal scholars and some reporters view the claims as a pretext for nullification that courts would likely reject [6] [3] [2]. Readers should treat blanket social-media proclamations of termination with caution and rely on documentary evidence and court rulings when available [2] [1].
Limitations: reporting cited here does not enumerate specific executive orders plus dates that were autopen-signed; available sources either report claims of widespread autopen use, note probes into process, or stress legal uncertainty without providing a definitive, sourced list [2] [8] [1].