Presidents have used autopens for decades. Now Trump objects to Biden’s use of one

Damilic Corp. president Bob Olding anchors a sheet of paper as the Atlantic Plus, the Signascript tabletop model autopen, produces a signature at their Rockville, Md., office, June 13, 2011. (AP)
Damilic Corp. president Bob Olding anchors a sheet of paper as the Atlantic Plus, the Signascript tabletop model autopen, produces a signature at their Rockville, Md., office, June 13, 2011. (AP)
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Updated 18 March 2025
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Presidents have used autopens for decades. Now Trump objects to Biden’s use of one

Presidents have used autopens for decades. Now Trump objects to Biden’s use of one
  • An autopen is a mechanical device that is used to replicate a person’s authentic signature

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump claimed Monday that pardons recently issued by Joe Biden to lawmakers and staff on the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot have no force because, Trump says, the-then president signed them with an autopen instead of by his own hand.
“In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!” Trump wrote on his social media site. Trump didn’t offer any evidence to support his claims. Nor did the White House.
Trump asserted in his all-caps post that the pardons are void and have no effect in his estimation. But presidents have broad authority to pardon or commute the sentences of whomever they please, the Constitution doesn’t specify that pardons must be in writing and autopen signatures have been used before for substantive actions by presidents.




President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP)

A representative for Biden declined comment.
WHAT IS AN AUTOPEN?
An autopen is a mechanical device that is used to replicate a person’s authentic signature. A pen or other writing implement is held by an arm of the machine, which reproduces a signature after a writing sample has been fed to it. Presidents, including Trump, have used them for decades. Autopens aren’t the same as an old-fashioned ink pad and rubber stamp or the electronic signatures used on PDF documents.
WHY IS IT SUDDENLY AN ISSUE?
The Oversight Project at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank recently said its analysis of thousands of pages of documents bearing Biden’s signature found that most were by autopen, including pardons. Conservative media have amplified the claims, which have been picked up by Trump. He has commented for several days running about Biden’s autopen use.
Mike Howell, the project’s executive director, said in an interview that his team is scrutinizing Biden’s pardons because that power lies only with the president under the Constitution and can’t be delegated to another person or a machine. Howell said some of Biden’s pardon papers also specify they were signed in Washington on days when he was elsewhere.
WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY?
There is no law governing a president’s use of an autopen.
A 2005 opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department said an autopen can be used to sign legislation. Barack Obama became the first president to do so in May 2011 when he signed an extension of the Patriot Act. Obama was in France on official business and, with time running out before the law expired, he authorized use of the autopen to sign it into law.




US President Joe Biden signs into law the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 9, 2022. (AFP)

Much earlier guidance on pardons was sent in 1929 from the solicitor general — the attorney who argues for the United States before the Supreme Court — to the attorney general. It says “neither the Constitution nor any statute prescribes the method by which executive clemency shall be exercised or evidenced.”
HAS TRUMP USED AN AUTOPEN?
Yes, but “only for very unimportant papers,” he said on Monday.
He told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday night that, “we may use it, as an example, to send some young person a letter because it’s nice. You know, we get thousands and thousands of letters, letters of support for young people, from people that aren’t feeling well, etcetera. But to sign pardons and all of the things that he signed with an autopen is disgraceful.”
WHY IS HE SINGLING OUT THE JAN. 6 PARDONS?
Trump remains angry at being prosecuted by the Justice Department over his actions in inspiring his supporters to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying Biden’s defeat of him in the 2020 election, though the case was dismissed after he won reelection. At the end of his term, Biden issued “preemptive pardons” to lawmakers and committee staff to protect them from any possible retribution from Trump.
On whether pardons must be in writing or by the president’s own hand, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has said the ”plain language of the Constitution imposes no such limitation.” Biden’s statement accompanying those pardons make clear they were official acts, said Carl Tobias, professor at the University of Richmond law school.
Biden issued hundreds of commutations or pardons, including to members of his family, also because he feared possible prosecution by Trump and his allies.
Trump vigorously used such powers at the opening of his presidency, issuing one document — a proclamation — granting pardons and commutations to all 1,500-plus people charged in the insurrection at the Capitol.
HOW ELSE DO PRESIDENTS USE THE AUTOPEN?
Presidents also use an autopen to sign routine correspondence to constituents, like letters recognizing life milestones.
During the Gerald Ford administration, the president and first lady Betty Ford occasionally signed documents and other correspondence by hand but White House staff more often used autopen machines to reproduce their signatures on letters and photographs.

 


Ukraine, US sign ‘memorandum of intent’ on resources deal: Kyiv

Ukraine, US sign ‘memorandum of intent’ on resources deal: Kyiv
Updated 6 sec ago
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Ukraine, US sign ‘memorandum of intent’ on resources deal: Kyiv

Ukraine, US sign ‘memorandum of intent’ on resources deal: Kyiv
  • US officials say boosting American business interests in Ukraine will help deter Russia from future aggression in the event of a ceasefire

KYIV: Ukraine and the United States on Thursday signed a “memorandum of intent” to move forward with a fraught deal for US access to Kyiv’s natural resources and critical minerals, Kyiv said.
“We are happy to announce the signing, with our American partners, of a Memorandum of Intent, which paves the way for an Economic Partnership Agreement and the establishment of the Investment Fund for the Reconstruction of Ukraine,” Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on X.
Kyiv and Washington had planned to sign a deal on extracting Ukraine’s strategic minerals weeks ago, but a clash between presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in February temporarily derailed work on the agreement.
Trump wants the deal — designed to give the US royalty payments on profits from Ukrainian mining of resources and rare minerals — as compensation for aid given to Ukraine by his predecessor, Joe Biden.
Svyrydenko did not publish details of the memorandum, but said work continued toward securing a final agreement.
“We hope that the Fund will become an effective tool for attracting investments in the reconstruction of our country, modernization of infrastructure, support for business, and the creation of new economic opportunities,” she said.
“There is a lot to do, but the current pace and significant progress give reason to expect that the document will be very beneficial for both countries.”
US officials say boosting American business interests in Ukraine will help deter Russia from future aggression in the event of a ceasefire.
Kyiv is pushing for concrete military and security guarantees as part of any deal to halt the three-year war.


Man who hijacked a small plane in Belize and was fatally shot was a US veteran

Man who hijacked a small plane in Belize and was fatally shot was a US veteran
Updated 54 min 19 sec ago
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Man who hijacked a small plane in Belize and was fatally shot was a US veteran

Man who hijacked a small plane in Belize and was fatally shot was a US veteran
  • The man was shot by a passenger who was licensed to carry a firearm, which he later turned over to police

BELIZE CITY: A US citizen hijacked a small Tropic Air plane in Belize on Thursday at knifepoint, injuring three others before being shot and killed, police said.
The assailant pulled a knife while the plane was in air, demanding the domestic flight take him out of the country, Police Commissioner Chester Williams told journalists.
The hijacker was identified as US citizen Akinyela Sawa Taylor, Williams said, adding that it appeared Taylor was a military veteran.
The plane circled the airspace between northern Belize and capital Belize City as the hijacking was underway, and began to run dangerously low on fuel, the police commissioner said.
Taylor stabbed three people on board, according to Williams, including the pilot and a passenger who shot Taylor with a licensed firearm as the plane landed outside Belize City.
That passenger was rushed to the hospital, as was Taylor, who died from the gunshot wound.
Williams said that it was unclear how Taylor boarded the plane with a knife, though he acknowledged that the country’s smaller airstrips lacked security to fully search passengers.
The attacker had been denied entry to the country over the weekend, according to police. The plane had been due to fly the short route from Corozal near the Mexican border to San Pedro, off the coast. Police said it was unclear how Taylor reached Corozal.
Belizean authorities have reached out to the US embassy in the country for aid in investigating the incident. Luke Martin, public affairs officer for the embassy, told journalists that it had no details on Taylor’s background or motivation so far.
According to information released by the airport, Taylor was a teacher in the United States. He was listed online as previously being a football coach at the McCluer North High School in Florissant, Missouri.
An employee at the school told Reuters that Taylor did not currently work there.


Maryland Sen. Van Hollen denied entry to El Salvador prison holding Abrego Garcia

Maryland Sen. Van Hollen denied entry to El Salvador prison holding Abrego Garcia
Updated 17 April 2025
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Maryland Sen. Van Hollen denied entry to El Salvador prison holding Abrego Garcia

Maryland Sen. Van Hollen denied entry to El Salvador prison holding Abrego Garcia
  • Van Hollen’s trip has become a partisan flashpoint in the US as Democrats have siezed on Abrego Garcia’s deportation as a cruel consequence of Trump’s disregard for the courts
  • While Van Hollen was denied entry, several House Republicans have visited the notorious gang prison in support of the Trump administration’s efforts

SAN SALVADOR: Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen says he was denied entry into an El Savador prison on Thursday while he was trying to check on the well-being of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.
Van Hollen is in El Salvador to push for Abrego Garcia’s release. The Democratic senator at a news conference in San Salvador that his car was stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint about 3 kilometers from the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, even as they let other cars go on.
“They stopped us because they are under orders not to allow us to proceed,” Van Hollen said.
US President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said this week that they have no basis to send him back, even as the Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake and the US Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return. Trump officials have said that Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, has ties to the MS-13 gang, but his attorneys say the government has provided no evidence of that and Abrego Garcia has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.
Van Hollen’s trip has become a partisan flashpoint in the US as Democrats have siezed on Abrego Garcia’s deportation as a cruel consequence of Trump’s disregard for the courts. Republicans have criticized Democrats for defending him and argued that his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held a news conference on Wednesday with the mother of a Maryland woman who was killed by a fugitive from El Salvador in 2023.
The Maryland senator told reporters Wednesday that he met with Salvadoran Vice President Felix Ulloa who said his government could not return Abrego Garcia to the United States.
“So today, I tried again to make contact with Mr. Abrego Garcia by driving to the CECOT prison,” Van Hollen said, and was stopped.
Van Hollen said Abrego Garcia has not had any contact with his family or his lawyers. “There has been no ability to find out anything about his health and well being,” Van Hollen said. He said Abrego Garcia should be able to have contact with his lawyers under international law.
“We won’t give up until Kilmar has his due process rights respected,” Van Hollen said. He said there would be “many more” lawmakers coming to El Salvador.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., is also considering a trip to El Salvador, as are some House Democrats.
While Van Hollen was denied entry, several House Republicans have visited the notorious gang prison in support of the Trump administration’s efforts. Rep. Riley Moore, a West Virginia Republican, posted Tuesday evening that he’d visited the prison where Abrego Garcia is being held. He did not mention Abrego Garcia but said the facility “houses the country’s most brutal criminals.”
“I leave now even more determined to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our homeland,” Moore wrote on social media.
Missouri Republican Rep. Jason Smith, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, also visited the prison. He posted on X that “thanks to President Trump” the facility “now includes illegal immigrants who broke into our country and committed violent acts against Americans.”
The fight over Abrego Garcia has also played out in contentious court filings, with repeated refusals from the government to tell a judge what it plans to do, if anything, to repatriate him.
Since March, El Salvador has accepted from the US more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants — whom Trump administration officials have accused of gang activity and violent crimes — and placed them inside the country’s maximum-security gang prison just outside of San Salvador. That prison is part of Bukele’s broader effort to crack down on the country’s powerful street gangs, which has put 84,000 people behind bars and made Bukele extremely popular at home.
Human rights groups have previously accused Bukele’s government of subjecting those jailed to “systematic use of torture and other mistreatment.” Officials there deny wrongdoing.


France hails ‘positive process’ as Europe, US discuss Ukraine ceasefire

France hails ‘positive process’ as Europe, US discuss Ukraine ceasefire
Updated 17 April 2025
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France hails ‘positive process’ as Europe, US discuss Ukraine ceasefire

France hails ‘positive process’ as Europe, US discuss Ukraine ceasefire
  • “Today in Paris, we launched a positive process in which the Europeans are involved,” the French presidency said
  • Rubio called Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss the Paris meeting, Moscow and Washington said

PARIS: France on Thursday hailed talks on the Ukraine war between top US and European officials during which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed a US peace plan.
President Emmanuel Macron’s office said the talks launched a “positive process” as Europe seeks to be included in efforts to end the three-year-old war.
The meetings in the French capital included Macron, Rubio, US envoy Steve Witkoff, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, German officials and Ukrainian ministers.
They took place as President Donald Trump’s push to end the war stumbles, with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin rebuffing a complete truce.
“Today in Paris, we launched a positive process in which the Europeans are involved,” the French presidency said.
A new meeting of envoys from the United States, France, Britain, Germany and Ukraine will take place next week in London, it added.
Rubio called Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss the Paris meeting, Moscow and Washington said.
“President Trump and the United States want this war to end, and have now presented to all parties the outlines of a durable and lasting peace,” the US State Department said Rubio told his Russian counterpart.
“The encouraging reception in Paris to the US framework shows that peace is possible if all parties commit to reaching an agreement,” he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also praised the talks.
“It is important that we hear each other, refine and clarify our positions, and work for the sake of real security of Ukraine and all our Europe,” Zelensky said in a post on X.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov however dismissed the Paris meeting, saying earlier that Europeans seemed to have “a focus on continuing the war.”
France and Britain have taken a leading role seeking a coordinated European response to defending Ukraine, during the conflict and in any ceasefire, after Trump shocked them by opening talks with Russia.
Macron said the Paris talks were “a very important occasion for convergence,” as everybody wanted “a robust and sustainable peace.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told reporters: “The novelty is that today in Paris, the United States, Ukraine, and the Europeans gathered around the same table.”
“For a long time there was concern that the Europeans would not be at the table,” he said.
Barrot expressed hope that the London meeting next week would help achieve a full and unconditional ceasefire “in the very near future.”
Russia’s strikes, which have recently killed dozens of people including children in Ukrainian cities, have increased pressure for new diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.
Zelensky earlier accused Witkoff of “spreading Russian narratives” after the US envoy suggested a peace deal with Russia hinged on the status of Ukraine’s occupied territories.
“I believe that Mr.Witkoff has taken on the strategy of the Russian side,” Zelensky told reporters.
“I think it is very dangerous, because he is consciously or unconsciously, I don’t know, spreading Russian narratives.”
Witkoff said this week that Putin was open to “permanent peace” after talks with the Kremlin chief in Saint Petersburg, their third meeting since Trump returned to the White House in January.
Despite the diplomatic efforts, Russia has continued to strike Ukraine.
Russian drone strikes and shelling in Ukraine killed at least 12 people on Thursday, Ukrainian authorities said, just days after a Russian attack killed at least 35 people in the northeastern city of Sumy.
Zelensky said Wednesday that negotiators were making “good progress” with the United States in fraught talks over a minerals deal intended to secure desperately needed US support. Trump said a deal could be signed next week.
Putin last month rejected a US proposal for a full and unconditional ceasefire, after Kyiv gave its backing to the idea.
He also suggested Zelensky be removed from office, sparking an angry response from Trump who said he was “very angry” with the Russian leader.
France’s Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu held talks in Washington on Thursday with US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who called on France to boost military spending, a Pentagon spokesman said.
“The secretary urged France to increase defense spending and, alongside other NATO allies, take primary responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense,” the spokesman said.


Trump says he’s in ‘no rush’ to end tariffs as he holds talks with Italy’s Meloni

Trump says he’s in ‘no rush’ to end tariffs as he holds talks with Italy’s Meloni
Updated 17 April 2025
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Trump says he’s in ‘no rush’ to end tariffs as he holds talks with Italy’s Meloni

Trump says he’s in ‘no rush’ to end tariffs as he holds talks with Italy’s Meloni
  • Trump administration has indicated that offers are coming from other countries and it is possible to do 90 deals during the 90-day tariff pause
  • “We know we are in a difficult moment," Meloni said this week in Rome

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Thursday that he is in “no rush” to reach any trade deals because of the revenues his tariffs are generating, but suggested while meeting with Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni that it would be easy to find an agreement with the European Union.
His administration has indicated that offers are coming from other countries and it is possible to do 90 deals during the 90-day tariff pause, but the president played down the likelihood of an accelerated timeline, saying any agreements would come “at a certain point.”
“We’re in no rush,” Trump said.
Meloni’s meeting with Trump will test her mettle as a bridge between the European Union and the United States. She is the first European leader to have face-to-face talks with him since he announced and then partially suspended 20 percent tariffs on European exports.
Meloni secured the meeting as Italy’s leader, but she also has, in a sense, been “knighted” to represent the EU at a critical juncture in the trade war. She was in close contact with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen before the trip, and “the outreach is … closely coordinated,” a commission spokeswoman said.
“We know we are in a difficult moment,” Meloni said this week in Rome. “Most certainly, I am well aware of what I represent, and what I am defending.”
The EU is defending what it calls “the most important commercial relationship in the world,’’ with annual trade reaching 1.6 trillion euros ($1.8 trillion).
Trade negotiations fall under the authority of the commission, which is pushing for a zero-for-zero tariff deal with Washington. Trump administration officials, in talks with the EU, have yet to publicly show signs of relenting on the president’s insistence that a baseline 10 percent tariff be charged on all foreign imports. Trump paused for 90 days his initial 20 percent tax on EU products so that negotiations could occur.
The EU has already engaged with Trump administration officials in Washington. Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commissioner for trade and economic security, said he met on Monday with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
Šefčovič said afterward on X that it would “require a significant joint effort on both sides” to get to zero tariffs and work on non-tariff trade barriers.
Meloni’s margins for progress are more in gaining clarity on the Republican president’s goals rather than outright concessions, experts say.
“It is a very delicate mission,” said Fabian Zuleeg, chief economist at the European Policy Center think tank in Brussels. “There is the whole trade agenda, and while she’s not officially negotiating, we know that Trump likes to have this kind of informal exchange, which in a sense is a negotiation. So it’s a lot on her plate.”
As the leader of a far-right party, Meloni is ideologically aligned with Trump on issues including curbing migration, promoting traditional values and skepticism toward multilateral institutions. But stark differences have emerged in Meloni’s unwavering support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
The two leaders are expected to discuss the war and Italy’s role in an eventual postwar reconstruction of Ukraine. Trump is expected to press Meloni to increase Italy’s defense spending, which last year fell well below the 2 percent of gross domestic product target for countries in the NATO military alliance. Italy’s spending, at 1.49 percent of GDP, is among the lowest in Europe.
Despite the differences on Ukraine and defense spending, Meloni is seen by some in the US administration as a vital bridge to Europe at a difficult moment for trans-Atlantic relations.
Trump is looking not only to discuss with Meloni how “Italy’s marketplace can be opened up, but also how they can help us with the rest of Europe,” according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters before the visit. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.
After being the only European leader to attend Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, Meloni has responded with studied restraint as abrupt shifts in US policy under Trump have frayed the US-European alliance. She has denounced the tariffs as “wrong” and warned that “dividing the West would be disastrous for everyone,” after Trump’s heated White House exchange with Ukraine’s president.
“She has been very cautious,’’ said Wolfango Piccoli, an analyst at the London-based Teneo consultancy. “It is what we need when we have a counterpart that is changing every day.’’
Italy maintains a 40 billion euro ($45 billion) trade surplus with the US, its largest with any country, fueled by Americans’ appetite for Italian sparkling wine, foodstuffs like Parmigiano Reggiano hard cheese and Parma ham, and Italian luxury fashion. These are all sectors critical to the Italian economy, and mostly supported by small- and medium-sized producers who are core center-right voters.
“All in all, I think she will focus on the very strong economic and trade relations that Italy has with the United States, not just in terms of exports, but also services and energy,” said Antonio Villafranca, vice president of the ISPI think tank in Milan. “For example, Italy could even consider importing more gas from the US”
The meeting comes against the backdrop of growing concerns over global uncertainty generated by the escalating tariff wars. Italy’s growth forecast for this year has already been slashed from 1 percent to 0.5 percent as a result.