The president indicated he expects the stance to be challenged in court.
President Donald Trump said on March 17 that pardons issued by his predecessor are no longer in effect due to evidence suggesting they were signed with an autopen.
The pardons “are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media website.
Those include pardons issued for former members of the U.S. House of Representatives committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol, Trump said. The former members “should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level,” he wrote.
Autopens are devices that let people sign documents using preloaded signatures.
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project said in a recent analysis that President Joe Biden’s late-term pardons, including for the former Jan. 6 committee members, appeared to have been completed with an autopen.
The foundation noted that some pardons signed on Dec. 30, 2022, were said to have been signed in Washington but that Biden at the time was on vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
After the foundation published its analysis, Trump began talking about the issue.
Biden “was grossly incompetent,” Trump told a press conference on March 13. “All you have to do is take a look, he signs by autopen. Who was signing all this stuff by autopen? Who would think to sign important documents by autopen?”
When asked about the legitimacy of Biden’s pardons by a reporter on Air Force One on March 16, Trump indicated it would be up to the court system to settle the matter.
“It’s not my decision; that’ll be up to a court,” Trump said. “But I would say that they’re null and void, because I’m sure Biden didn’t have any idea that it was taking place and somebody was using an autopen to sign off and to give pardons.”
No lawsuits appear to have been filed against Trump’s declaration as of yet.
The U.S. Constitution states that a president “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States,” a pardon power recognized by courts as broad.
The limits to the power include not being able to issue pardons for future conduct, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1866 decision known as Garland.
Courts have said that presidents can issue pardons even if they’re not in writing.
“We readily determine that nothing in the Constitution restricts the President’s exercise of the clemency power to commutations that have been rendered through a documented writing,” an appeals court ruled in 2024.
It added later: “A clemency warrant or, indeed, any writing, is not required for the President to exercise this authority under the Constitution. Hypothetically, the President could proclaim at a press conference in the Rose Garden that he has pardoned a particular individual, and that would be a valid act.”