President Donald Trump has doubled down on what appears to be his new favorite conspiracy theory in a late-night, all-caps Truth Social meltdown.
Last week, Trump sounded off about “the Biggest Scandal in American History”—other than the “rigged” 2020 election—claiming someone had “usurped” a mentally declining Joe Biden and used an “autopen” to push through a radical-left agenda while Biden was president.
An autopen is a machine used to replicate signatures which has become the center of a MAGA conspiracy theory focused on the pardons Biden granted in his last weeks in office. It’s not known whether Biden even used the device to sign pardons.
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Early on Wednesday, Trump was at it again. “With the exception of the RIGGED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020,” he began, as he did in his previous post.
Then, smashing the “caps-lock” button, he raged: “THE AUTOPEN IS THE BIGGEST POLITICAL SCANDAL IN AMERICAN HISTORY!!!”
Some figures in the movement believe, as Trump has now suggested twice, that Biden did not call the shots during his presidency and that someone else undercut him and wielded presidential power with the clandestine use of an autopen.
Trump’s Department of Justice has even launched a probe into Biden’s pardons, which came at the end of his term last year. The investigation, headed by Ed Martin, the department’s pardon attorney, will also examine whether an autopen was used nefariously.
According to an email seen by Reuters, Martin said the probe aims to find out whether Biden “was competent and whether others were taking advantage of him through use of AutoPen or other means.”
Legal experts point out that the U.S. Constitution grants the president broad clemency powers and states that there is no requirement for a handwritten signature on pardons.
A 2005 Department of Justice memo supports the use of autopen for signing official documents, stating that the president may direct a subordinate to affix his signature using such a device.
Martin himself, in soft-launching the probe last month, even admitted there was no issue. “If you use the autopen for pardon power, I don’t think that that’s necessarily a problem,” he said. His new move, however, seems to be an attempt to get around that.
Martin’s email did not state who instigated the probe, or exactly which of Biden’s family members will be investigated.
The 82-year-old pardoned his son Hunter in November after he pleaded guilty to tax violations and was convicted on firearms-related charges. His pardon drew bipartisan criticism.
The then-president also pre-emptively pardoned his brothers James and Frank and his sister Valerie Biden Owens. Their respective spouses were also shielded.
In delivering the pardons, Joe Biden cited a desire to shield family members from future politically motivated prosecutions.
White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told the Daily Beast on Tuesday that the probe was fair, given Biden’s apparent condition by the time his term ended.
“The American people deserve to know the extent to which unelected staffers and an autopen acted as a proxy president due to the incompetence and infirmity of the previous president,” he said in a statement.
“President Trump was elected to restore the integrity and transparency of the office, and answering the question of who was actually running this country for four years is well within the president’s rights.”
The Department of Justice declined to respond. A Biden spokesperson was also contacted for comment.
