As President Donald J. Trump begins his second term, his administration is not only rebuilding America’s institutions but excavating what may be the most unsettling chapter in modern U.S. history: a presidency that possibly never really existed.
The Biden years were marked by confusion, secrecy, and growing concern about the president’s cognitive fitness. But the recent wave of disclosures regarding the widespread use of the autopen—a machine that replicates a signature—suggests something more disturbing than poor leadership: a presidency conducted by proxy, where critical decisions may have been made without Joe Biden’s understanding, consent, or awareness.
The Autopen: A Tool or a Mask?
The autopen has been used by previous presidents in limited, transparent ways—typically to sign time-sensitive but routine documents. But Biden’s presidency took this tool and weaponized it for opacity. According to investigative findings, entire categories of executive actions, including high-profile federal pardons, were issued via autopen—without any public record of Biden’s personal involvement.
There have been no release logs, videos, or transcripts proving that Biden authorized each use. And in light of the damning revelations in Jake Tapper’s book Original Sin, that silence is deafening.
Tapper—no Trump loyalist—describes a presidency gripped by decline and deceit. He writes of a Democratic leadership class that knew Biden was mentally unfit, yet conspired to suppress dissent, destroy whistleblowers, and push forward a reelection campaign based on optics, not governance. The implication: Biden wasn’t running the country. Others were.
The Questionable Pardons
Nowhere is this issue more fraught than with Biden’s extraordinary wave of pardons—many of which were signed using the autopen.
Among those pardoned:
- Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was under congressional investigation for multiple pandemic-era decisions
- General Mark Milley, implicated in unauthorized foreign backchannel communications during the Trump transition
- Members of the January 6th Committee and their staff, many of whom had been accused of procedural and legal misconduct
- A sweeping list of unnamed staffers and left-wing activists, some of whom received broad, time-spanning pardons for unspecified federal offenses
- Hunter Biden, whose pardon was signed by Joe Biden himself—one of the few exceptions
- Even more shockingly, Biden’s siblings and their spouses were granted blanket clemency, despite no formal indictments at the time
This was not clemency. It was a mass political absolution, cloaked in legal formalism and buried beneath mechanical ink.
And yet we are supposed to believe that Joe Biden—who often appeared publicly disoriented, who struggled to complete sentences, who was increasingly absent from direct press engagements—personally evaluated each of these cases and authorized their pardons?
Or are we to accept the more likely truth: someone else was pulling the levers of power, using Biden’s name as cover?
Constitutional Implications
Let us be clear: the Constitution grants the pardon power to the President, not to his aides, not to his Chief of Staff, not to a committee. If Biden did not knowingly and competently authorize these pardons, they are not valid—and may be subject to overturn or legal reversal.
Moreover, if members of the executive branch knowingly used the autopen without legitimate presidential direction, they may be guilty of fraud, abuse of power, or even conspiracy.
This demands immediate action:
- Congressional hearings to subpoena staff involved in the pardoning process
- A DOJ inquiry into the legality of each autopen signature
- A full audit of executive actions taken between 2021 and 2025 for authenticity and presidential intent
- A constitutional review of the 25th Amendment, and how it may have been intentionally bypassed
We Need the Truth
We cannot allow a precedent in which the presidency becomes a stage prop while bureaucrats rule behind the curtain. Nor can we allow a political class and media apparatus to declare, in hindsight, “Well, everyone knew.” That is complicity.
If Biden wasn’t making decisions, who was? If Biden wasn’t capable of authorizing pardons, why weren’t the American people told? And if pardons were granted to political allies, family members, and key government officials in order to preempt investigations or shield wrongdoing—how is that not an abuse of the highest office in the land?
Jake Tapper, in a moment of rare moral clarity, called this deception a “fateful decision” with “unsettling truth.” He’s right. But exposing it isn’t enough. It must be unraveled. Reversed. And punished where appropriate.
The time for speculation is over. The time for justice begins now.
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