If a pardon is granted, and the autopen was used to sign it, there must be official documentation of the approval to use the autopen that has the President’s instructions documented, and that includes pardons and Executive Orders.
That is what I have been told.
Obviously, this is common sense. Otherwise, the autopen could be used for any purpose at all...by anyone with access to the autopen.
There are people on this very forum who think that the autopen usage by someone appointed by the President (such as Biden’s White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients) is the same as Thomas Becket being appointed Lord Chancellor by the King of England in the 12th Century and given the Seal of England which authorized him to make any decision on behalf of, or in the absence or incapacitation of the King, no questions asked.
Does anyone really think that would have been an acceptable practice to the Founders? (apparently the answer is “yes”, given some of the responses to this issue on this forum)
“If a pardon is granted, and the autopen was used to sign it, there must be official documentation of the approval to use the autopen that has the President’s instructions documented, and that includes pardons and Executive Orders.”
you just fabricated the above out of thin air; the truth of the matter is as follows:
There is no law, rule, or regulation that explicitly requires formal documentation (such as written records, logs, or certifications) for a U.S. President to authorize or use an autopen—a mechanical device that replicates a signature with ink—for signing official documents.
Key Legal and Historical Context
• Constitutional Basis: Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution requires the President to “sign” approved bills to make them law but does not specify that the signature must be handwritten or personally applied, nor does it mandate any documentation of the signing process. The Constitution is silent on the form of the signature or any record-keeping requirements for it.
• Department of Justice Guidance: A 2005 memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) under President George W. Bush explicitly concluded that the President may direct a subordinate to affix their signature to a bill (e.g., via autopen) without personally performing the act, as long as the President has approved the content and decided to sign it. This opinion emphasizes presidential intent over the physical method but does not require or mention any specific documentation to validate the authorization.
• Absence of Governing Law: Multiple legal analyses and reports confirm there is no federal statute, executive order, or regulation that regulates autopen use across all presidential actions or mandates documentation for it. For instance:
• Autopen use dates back to at least Thomas Jefferson (using a precursor device) and has been employed by presidents including Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Gerald Ford, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden for bills, pardons, and routine correspondence.
• Presidents like Obama used it for time-sensitive legislation (e.g., the 2011 Patriot Act extension while abroad), and no court has invalidated such actions for lack of documentation.
• Related Practices and Norms: While not legally required, White House procedures often involve internal records of presidential directives (e.g., verbal or informal approvals) for accountability, especially in high-stakes contexts like pardons. A 2025 House Oversight Committee report criticized gaps in contemporaneous written authorizations for some Biden-era autopen-signed documents, recommending better documentation for transparency, but this is a congressional critique, not a binding rule. Similarly, a 2025 bill (the SIGN Pardons Act) proposed requiring physical signatures for pardons but did not pass and addressed method, not documentation.