In a rare interview since leaving office in January, former President Joe Biden dismissed one of the right’s more bizarre conspiracies: that his aides were secretly running the country using an autopen.
The right, including President Donald Trump and his allies, have claimed that during Biden’s final months in office, his alleged cognitive decline made him unfit to make clemency decisions, and that staff exploited the autopen—a device to automatically sign documents—to issue pardons without his knowledge.
“I made every single one of those,” Biden told The New York Times. “I understand why Trump would think that, because obviously, I guess, he doesn’t focus much. Anyway, so—yes, I made every decision.”
While Biden didn’t personally sign each clemency order, the Times reports he was heavily involved in the process—reviewing recommendations, setting criteria, and giving oral approval after aides walked him through the names one by one.
“I was deeply involved,” he said. “I laid out a strategy how I want to go about these, dealing with pardons and commutations. I was—and I pulled the team in to say this is how I want to get it done generically and then specifically.”
Still, Trump keeps spinning the story. In a March post on his Truth Social platform, he claimed Biden had no “knowledge or consent” of the clemency decisions, some of which benefited Trump’s perceived political enemies.
“Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!” Trump wrote, suggesting the people who did “may have committed a crime.”
Biden’s explanation is much simpler. He told the Times the reason he didn’t sign them personally was “because there were a lot of them.”
In his final weeks, Biden issued commutations for death row inmates and protected public servants, like former top public health adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci and retired Gen. Mark Milley, from political retribution. Biden also shielded family members from Trump’s promised campaign of vengeance.
“I know how vindictive he is,” Biden said of Trump. “Everybody knows how vindictive he is. So we knew that they’d do what they’re doing now. … [A]ll it would do is, if they, if he went after them, would be, is run up legal bills. I just, I just know how he operates.”
The autopen has been used by several past presidents, including Trump himself, but Biden’s use of it is now at the center of a GOP-led investigation. House Oversight Chair James Comer has called the supposed cover-up of Biden’s alleged decline a “historic scandal,” and has asserted that Republicans are determined to “prevent such an abuse from happening again.”
Conservatives have even questioned the legality of autopen-signed orders. But that argument is unlikely to hold up. The Justice Department approved the practice in 2005. Former President Barack Obama was the first to use it on legislation in 2011. Trump followed suit, though he first lied about having used it.
“The autopen is, you know, is legal,” Biden told the Times. “As you know, other presidents used it, including Trump. But the point is that, you know, we’re talking about a whole lot of people.”
Even so, Republicans aren’t letting it go. Trump’s Justice Department is reportedly investigating whether Biden was mentally fit to issue those pardons. Meanwhile, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are probing his health. Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, recently declined to testify, citing patient confidentiality and his Fifth Amendment rights. More aides are expected to be questioned in the coming weeks.
Comer condemned O’Connor’s silence as proof of a cover-up.
“It’s clear there was a conspiracy to cover up President Biden’s cognitive decline,” he said.
But Biden isn’t buying the sincerity of Republicans’ outrage.
“They’re liars. They know it,” he told the Times. “They’ve done so badly. They’ve lied so consistently about almost everything they’re doing. The best thing they can do is try to change the focus and focus on something else. … I think that’s what this is about.”
So while Republicans focus on signatures and conspiracies, Biden is betting the public won’t be fooled. The documents were signed. The decisions were his. And if Trump wants to argue otherwise, Biden seems ready to defend himself.