Donald Trump still has a grudge against “Sleepy Joe” who claimed on Friday that he was canceling the decrees and other documents signed by his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden with a signing machine, declarations with uncertain legal consequences.
“Any document signed by Sleepy Joe using the signing machine (…), approximately 92% of them, is hereby canceled and no longer has any force or effect,” wrote the Republican president on his Truth Social platform.
The concrete consequences of this declaration, and in particular the question of whether the Republican president has the power to cancel documents signed by his predecessor or whether the use of a signing machine, also called an automatic pen, is a reason for invalidation, were not immediately clear.
The signing machine is an angle of attack regularly used by Donald Trump to try to discredit his predecessor Joe Biden and nullify his decisions.
This is a machine equipped with a pen which can reproduce the signature of an individual, previously recorded. This device is used by the American government but also by companies to sign documents in large numbers.
“The people who used the signing machine did so illegally”
Denouncing “one of the biggest scandals” in American history, the Republican billionaire maintains, without providing evidence, that collaborators of Joe Biden used the signing machine to sign texts that he had not approved.
In June he ordered the launch of an investigation against the former president’s entourage, accused of having “plotted” to mask his decline and usurp his power. Joe Biden denounced “ridiculous and false” allegations.
“The crazy leftists who surrounded Biden (…) took the presidency away from him,” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday, assuring that “the people who used the signing machine did so illegally.”
“Joe Biden was not involved in the signing machine process and, if he says he was, he will be prosecuted for perjury,” he threatened.