President Donald Trump moved decisively this week, announcing that any executive orders or other documents signed with an autopen by Joe Biden are “hereby terminated,” and even threatening perjury charges if Biden claims he personally authorized those autopen signatures. Conservatives should applaud a president willing to call out what many of us have long suspected: that unelected staffers were running the show while the Oval Office looked the other way.
For those who still pretend an autopen is just harmless bureaucracy, remember this device replicates a signature without the pen ever touching the paper, and questions about its use on high-stakes presidential actions are not new. Autopens have been used by administrations before, but their legality hinges on clear presidential authorization, and the public has a right to know when and how our most consequential decisions were signed.
Republican investigators and conservative oversight groups have raised alarms that a startling share of Biden-era actions bore the same autopen mark, suggesting an alarming passivity at the top of the executive branch and an alarming empowerment of inner-circle aides. If the House Oversight findings are accurate, this goes beyond technicalities to the heart of accountability: who actually made the decisions that shaped our national security, economy, and courts? The country deserves answers, and President Trump’s move forces the uncomfortable questions the left refuses to face.
Of course the left will howl that a president can’t simply “cancel” his predecessor’s acts, but conservatives know that presidents routinely unwind prior administrations’ policies and that exposing malpractice is a necessary step toward restoring proper governance. Legal scholars will huff and puff, but the crucial point is not the legal gymnastics alone — it is that Americans learned their government may have been hollowed out by staff operating in the shadows. That reality needs confronting, not whitewashing.
Trump’s claim that roughly 92 percent of Biden’s documents were autopen-signed may be contested, but the number is beside the point: if even a significant minority of consequential orders were rubber-stamped without obvious presidential input, that is a scandal. Patriots should insist on transparency and the kind of institutional integrity that prevents backroom operatives from steering the ship while the captain is sidelined. The alternative is rule by unelected bureaucrats, and conservatives will not stand for that.
Expect the usual media outrage and Democratic theatrics, but also expect more investigations and legal reviews — exactly what accountability looks like. If past administrations used autopens, so be it; consistent standards must apply and if laws or norms were broken they must be remedied. The American people deserve a presidency where the decisions affecting their lives are signed, owned, and explained by the person in the Oval Office, not hidden behind mechanical signatures and smiling aides.
Hardworking Americans should watch closely and demand that whatever process follows be thorough and unapologetic. We’re not looking for partisan vengeance; we’re demanding that the rule of law and the dignity of the presidency be restored. Stand with a leader who calls out incompetence and shadow governance, and never let the swamp turn our republic into a rubber-stamp bureaucracy.
