President Trump announced that all executive orders and documents using automatic signature under Mr. Biden will be disabled.
“I hereby cancel all executive orders or any documents not directly signed by Mr. Joe Biden, because those using automatic signature pens have done so illegally,” US President Donald Trump posted on social networks on November 28.
Mr. Trump said that the number of documents Mr. Biden used with an automatic pen accounted for 92% and would “no longer be valid”.
Conservative legal expert Ed Whelan believes that Mr. Trump has every right to cancel executive orders, whether Mr. Biden personally signs them or not. “But he does not have the right to do so for other documents that Mr. Biden directed to sign with an automatic pen, such as bills enacted by Congress or amnesties,” Whelan said.
In his final days in office, Mr. Biden pardoned his son, lawmakers investigated Mr. Trump, a military general criticized Mr. Trump and the country’s top expert on Covid.
US President Donald Trump at the White House on October 20. Image: AP
The US Department of Justice said in 2005 that the president does not need to sign a bill by hand and can direct staff to “attach the president’s signature to the document, for example, with an automatic signature pen”. In 2011, New York Times reported that Barack Obama became the first US president to sign a bill with an automatic pen while in Europe.
However, Mr. Trump believes that former President Biden’s use of an automatic signature proves that he is no longer capable of running the White House while in office. The Republican Party meanwhile accused those around Mr. Biden of using automatic signatures to bypass the leadership. Last month, Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives also called on the Department of Justice to investigate this issue.
The White House recently set up a “hall of fame” area hanging portraits of American leaders, but replaced Mr. Biden’s photo with a photo of an automatic signature.
An autopen machine copies signatures in 2011. Photo: AP
Automatic signature pens are printer-sized machines with a mechanical arm attached to a pen, capable of copying pre-programmed signatures. This type of machine helps officials and celebrities easily sign everything, from documents and letters to goods and items in large quantities.
Mr. Biden and his colleagues have not commented on President Trump’s new statement. But the former US president in June denied similar accusations and asserted “I am the one who made the decisions during my presidency.”