How many orders did biden sign by autopen
Executive summary
Available reporting does not produce a single, authoritative count of how many presidential orders Joe Biden “signed by autopen”; official records list the actions themselves but do not annotate which were autopen-signed, and investigators, partisan committees and commentators offer wildly different tallies and interpretations [1] [2] [3]. Claims range from percentages applied to Biden’s 162 executive orders to counts in the thousands when broader categories of presidential documents are folded in — but no source in the provided reporting gives a definitive, independently verified total [2] [4] [5].
1. The official record: executive orders exist, but autopen use is not flagged on primary registers
The Federal Register and White House presidential-actions pages publicly list executive orders and other presidential documents and show that Biden issued 162 executive orders across his term with 13 in 2025 specifically catalogued [1] [2], but those official repositories do not mark whether a particular item was signed by hand or by an autopen, so they cannot by themselves answer “how many” were autopen-signed [1] [6].
2. Partisan investigations and advocacy projects give high but inconsistent totals
Republican-led Oversight Committee reports and affiliated projects have asserted that the autopen was used extensively and even allege staff misused it to execute major policy, framing the problem as a cover-up and calling for DOJ review [3] [7], while independent investigations like the Oversight Project claim high percentages of autopen use — for example, claiming 73.7% of 2024 EOs and 100% of 2025 EOs were autopen-signed and that many clemency warrants were autopen-signed [8]. Those findings are presented as investigative totals, not as confirmations from primary White House records [8].
3. Commentators and outlets expand or compress the definition of “orders”
Some analysts and opinion pieces count “substantive autopen executions” across a wide array of documents (not just executive orders) and produce much larger figures — RealClearPolicy’s column cites “more than 1,400 substantive” autopen executions during 2021–2024, a total that clearly includes memoranda, determinations and other instruments beyond formal EOs [5]. By contrast, media fact-checks and mainstream outlets emphasize that autopens are a longstanding presidential convenience used by many presidents and question sweeping legal claims grounded solely in autopen use [9] [10].
4. Political claims inflate certainty; counter-claims emphasize legality and precedent
Former President Trump publicly declared he would void Biden documents “signed by autopen,” and at times has attached percentage figures such as “approximately 92%” to that assertion [4], but legal analysts and multiple news outlets note that presidents have long used autopens and that rescinding actions or nullifying pardons involves established legal constraints beyond the question of a mechanical signature [9] [10]. The Oversight Committee’s calls for probe and the White House’s own later reviews reflect competing agendas: one seeking accountability and possible criminal referral, the other defending presidential continuity and the traditional administrative uses of autopens [3] [11].
5. Bottom line: reporting gives a disputed range, not a verified count
No source in the provided reporting offers a definitive, independently verified number of “orders signed by autopen”; the closest concrete figures are: Biden issued 162 executive orders total [2], the Federal Register documents 13 EOs for 2025 [1], partisan oversight papers and advocacy groups claim high proportions or thousands of autopen uses depending on scope [8] [5], and political actors have cited percentages like “≈92%” without independent confirmation [4]. Therefore the claim “how many orders did Biden sign by autopen” cannot be settled from these sources alone — it depends on (a) whether the question means only formal executive orders or all presidential actions, and (b) acceptance of partisan investigative tallies versus the lack of an official autopen annotation in primary records [1] [2] [8] [5].