Are there records showing when Trump used autopen for campaign or personal correspondence?
Executive summary
Public reporting shows presidents, including Donald Trump, have used autopens for routine correspondence; multiple outlets note Trump himself has admitted limited autopen use and that the DOJ has long found autopen use lawful for signing bills when authorized [1] [2] [3]. News coverage says it is unclear exactly which Biden documents were signed by autopen and that no definitive public inventory of every autopen use in Biden’s term has been produced [4] [5].
1. What the record shows about presidential autopen use
Autopens — machines that reproduce a handwritten signature in ink — have been used across administrations for decades, and the Justice Department’s 2005 Office of Legal Counsel opinion expressly said a president need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature for a bill to become law, so long as the use is authorized [3] [2]. Reporters and historians note autopens have appeared in White House practice for routine items and, in some cases, for legislation and proclamations when presidents are unavailable [4] [3].
2. Did Trump ever use an autopen? The reporting
Multiple news outlets record that Trump has acknowledged using an autopen himself, saying in public remarks that he used it “only for very unimportant papers” or routine constituent letters, while criticizing its application to pardons or major actions [1] [6] [7]. Coverage emphasizes Trump’s stated limit — “very unimportant papers” — but also shows he has used the device in practice [1].
3. Are there public records enumerating specific autopen uses by Trump?
Available sources do not present a comprehensive, date-stamped public ledger listing every instance when Trump personally authorized autopen signatures for campaign, White House, or personal correspondence. Reporting focuses on public statements and examples (routine letters, statements that some bills were autopen-signed while traveling) rather than a formal, searchable record of each use [1] [3] [5].
4. What journalists and officials have documented about Biden-era autopen use
News organizations say Biden used an autopen at times — for instance, to sign a funding extension while traveling — but they also stress that outlets and congressional reports have not produced a definitive count of which executive orders or pardons were signed by autopen versus by hand [8] [4] [5]. House Republicans have released reports critical of Biden’s autopen use, but outlets report those documents stopped short of proving a staff conspiracy to sign without presidential authorization [5] [9].
5. Conflicting claims and the political framing
Since late November 2025, President Trump has repeatedly asserted that roughly “92%” of Biden’s documents were autopen-signed and has declared those items void; outlets flag that figure as unsubstantiated in public reporting [10] [3] [11]. Republican officials such as Oversight Committee leaders have echoed allegations about improper autopen use, while other reporting and legal commentary underline longstanding legality and precedent for autopen signatures when properly authorized [9] [3] [12].
6. Legal context and expert views in the record
Legal experts cited in reporting call into question the notion that autopen use, by itself, renders presidential actions invalid: the DOJ opinion and multiple commentators note autopen use can be lawful and binding if the president authorized it [3] [12]. Media outlets report skepticism from legal analysts about criminalizing a president’s later claim that he did or did not authorize autopen signings [3] [12].
7. What’s missing from current reporting — and why it matters
Available sources do not include a forensic, document-by-document public audit proving which specific Biden-era executive orders or pardons were autopen-signed and whether explicit contemporaneous authorizations exist for each use; that absence fuels competing political narratives [4] [5]. Without such itemized records or released authorizations, claims about percentages (e.g., 92%) and mass invalidation remain assertions reported as such by outlets [10] [11].
8. Bottom line for readers
Contemporaneous reporting confirms presidents including Trump have used autopens and that the DOJ has long accepted authorized autopen signatures as valid; it also shows no publicly available, authoritative log detailing every autopen instance for Trump’s campaign/personal mail or for Biden’s presidential documents has been published in the sources reviewed [1] [3] [4]. Where politics makes broad claims about scope or illegality, press coverage points to gaps in the public record and to legal precedent that complicates efforts to unilaterally void such documents [10] [12].