Posted on 03/12/2025 9:53:49 AM PDT by Racketeer
ROFL
Obama started this nonsense. There is a legitimate constitutional question, whether orders and pardons ‘signed’ by an absentee executive have legal force and effect.
Good read on this topic
https://patch.com/pennsylvania/doylestown/fanny-says-john-hancock-didnt-use-an-autopen
John Hancock Didn’t Use an Autopen
Laws are too important to be signed by a machine.
Posted Thu, Jun 30, 2011
A strange thing happened a few weeks ago. Congress passed an extension of the Patriot Act while President Obama was in Europe. However, the White House announced the president immediately signed the bill into law.
How? The White House acknowledged Obama had not personally signed the measure, but had authorized the use of an “autopen” back in Washington. This was the first time an autopen had ever been used to sign legislation.
A group of 21 Republican Congressmen sent Obama a letter saying use of the autopen “appears contrary to the Constitution,” pointing out the Bush opinion also referred to opposing legal views that the president’s personal signature is required on bills. The Congressmen asked Obama to re-sign the bill himself, but he refused.
The Constitution says every bill passed by Congress shall be sent to the president and “if he approve he shall sign it...” The Obama administration cited a written opinion from George W. Bush’s legal advisers that the president does not have to personally sign bills, but can authorize use of an autopen (although Bush never did so).
This may seem a dispute over a legal technicality, but it raises serious questions. If “sign” doesn’t really mean “sign,” then can a president interpret anything in the Constitution as he sees fit? If a president should be hospitalized or otherwise incapacitated, would his staff then be allowed to “sign” bills using the autopen? Should a president die suddenly, what’s to prevent aides from backdating unsigned documents and then mechanically “signing” them?
It’s bad enough that autopens are used to deceive the public into thinking they are getting authentic signatures. Obama’s use of the autopen, even just once, sets a very troubling precedent that the president can skirt the Constitution whenever it’s convenient. What do you think?
Ironically, lawyers for Enron executive Kenneth Lay argued at his fraud trial that he couldn’t be held accountable for documents bearing his signature because they had been signed by an autopen.
While autopen signatures may look realistic, autograph dealers consider them as fakes not worth the paper they are written on. An autopen signature is no more genuine than a rubber signature stamp.
When the Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776, John Hancock and the other 55 patriots signed their names in their own handwriting. Suppose the autopen had existed back then, and the colonists found out that all the signatures were machine-made facsimiles.
Would anyone have taken the revolutionary leaders seriously, when they didn’t even have the integrity to sign the document themselves?
Suppose Abraham Lincoln had used an autopen to sign the Emancipation Proclamation? What if Richard Nixon had signed his letter of resignation with an autopen? This would have cast doubt on the authenticity of the documents.
In a real-life example, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld caught hell in 2004 when it was disclosed he was using an autopen to sign letters of condolence to families of American soldiers killed in action overseas. Rumsfeld claimed he authorized the device so the letters would get out quickly, but promised he would personally sign each letter in the future.
Just because the Bush administration’s lawyers believed that autopen signatures are legal doesn’t make it so. Remember, these were the same attorneys who advised Bush that he could issue “signing statements” when he signed legislation, stating he would not observe or enforce portions of laws he disagreed with.
I realize the law and common sense are often at odds, but common sense tells you that important documents should be signed by hand. Would wills, deeds, affidavits, income tax returns, marriage licenses, birth certificates and the like be valid if signed by an autopen? What’s the point of requiring original documents if facsimile signatures are acceptable?
(This is a cut & paste excerpt.)
Seriously.
But it’s a nice distraction - SHINY AND CHROME!
Get this to a friendly judge for a ruling and then go to town prosecuting those who lost their pardons.
Prosecute and find out.
Where the hell did Becker come up with that nonsense? The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly require a president to be physically "present" for all legal signatures, such as signing bills into law, executive orders, or other official documents.
The Constitution outlines the president's responsibilities for signing or vetoing legislation and performing executive duties, but it does not specify the location or physical presence requirements for the President for these actions.
Just think about it. When the Constitution was written, a person HAD to be physically present to sign a document. There was no "autopen" or other way to sign something if the President was not present.
Stood up for or by what? I do not believe auto-pen sigs are legal when the person being auto-signed for is out of the country or absent from the signing.
Autopen is just as good. As long as Biden knew it was being used. Good luck getting him to say otherwise.
Yep, Obama and Biden had puppeteers. Obama was used to hold on to a certain demographic and Biden was used to help “win” an election.
Is that the Chattanooga choo-choo?
Makes me wonder how many in the Biden administration profited greatly by using the auto pen to sign Biden’s signature to orders he knew nothing about.
ISWYDT!.......................
Not trying to defend this - I looked up pictures of the “autopen”.
It’s not that large.
It could easily be carried with all of the other trappings of POTUS.
They can say he was present when the thing was used.
Not likely it was - but they will say it was.
So? I don’t always recall everything at the moment. Do you?
It is going to be nearly impossible to get a legally binding statement from Biden that his autopen was used without his permission.
Nothing will come from this. If they go to Joe and ask him if he approved these signatures, he’ll say “WHAT?”, and then Jill will elbow him, and he’ll say “Yeah, I did that”. And that’s it.
What else could happen?
Clinton was using the autopen. There isn’t a question. Signed is signed. Especially in this modern world where e-signature websites are legit.
There’s no rule that says the president has to be in the Oval Office when he signs stuff. Signing or “signing” can happen anywhere. E-signatures are binding for everything else. There’s nothing to fight here.
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