Former President Joe Biden explained his reasoning behind using an autopen in a recent interview, clarifying his administration’s justification for employing this technology.
The interview with the New York Times focused on his utilization of an autopen during the final pardons he issued at the conclusion of his administration.
During his last weeks in office, Biden granted clemency and pardoned over 1,500 individuals, an act the White House characterized at the time as the largest single-day clemency effort by a US president.
Speaking to the Times on Thursday, Biden said that he “made every decision” on his own.
“We’re talking about [granting clemency to] a whole lot of people,” the Democrat said.
However, the Times reported that Biden “did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people,” according to the former president and his aides.
“Rather, after extensive discussion of different possible criteria, [Biden] signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a reduction in sentence,” the Times’s report read.
Instead of repeatedly asking the president to resign updated versions of official documents, his staff used an autopen to put Biden’s signature on the final version.
Biden’s comments came as Republicans attacked him for his autopen use on a massive number of official documents.
In June, President Donald Trump sent a memo to the Department of Justice directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the autopen use and to determine whether it was related to a decline in Biden’s mental state.
“In recent months, it has become increasingly apparent that former President Biden’s aides abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline and assert Article II authority,” Trump wrote.
“This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history. The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.”
Also in June, Trump told reporters that he thought it was “inappropriate” to use an autopen at all, though past presidents have used them.
“Usually, when they put documents in front of you, they’re important,” Trump said. “Even if you’re signing ambassadorships or – and I consider that important, I think it’s inappropriate.”
“You have somebody that’s devoting four years of their life or more to being an ambassador. I think you really deserve that person deserves to get a real signature… not an autopen signature.”
Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.
