Biden defends validity of autopen signatures, but it’s not so clear: ‘I made every decision’

Joe Biden pushed back against Republicans who have raised questions about the validity of the flurry of pardons and clemency decisions that were signed off by autopen during the waning days of his disastrous tenure.

In an interview with the New York Times that was published on Sunday, the disgraced former president rejected allegations that the controversial actions were undertaken without his knowledge and that he was cognitively impaired at the time.

Biden branded President Donald J. Trump and other Republicans as “liars” and insisted that “I made every decision,” saying that he had staffers use the autopen of his signature on the warrants for clemency because “we’re talking about a whole lot of people.”

“They’re liars. They know it,” Biden told the Times. “They know, for certain. I mean, this is — look, what they, they’ve had a pretty good thing going here. They’ve done so badly. They’ve lied so consistently about almost everything they’re doing. The best thing they can do is try to change the focus and focus on something else. And this is a — I think that’s what this is about.”

But the Times’ obvious effort at damage control for Biden may have inadvertently validated critics by confirming that the geriatric Democrat did not actually sign the pardons himself.

Axios’ Alex Thompson, who co-authored Jake Tapper’s book on the “cover-up” of Biden’s senility, shared a snippet of the article that “Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons…”

“Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons…Rather than ask Biden to keep signing revised versions, his staff waited and then ran the final version thru the autopen, which they saw as…routine”https://t.co/TwhbvujB6c pic.twitter.com/4OHRSl93or

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) July 13, 2025

The paper reported that Biden “did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people,” citing the ex-POTUS and his aides. “Rather, after extensive discussion of different possible criteria, he signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a reduction in sentence.”

Trump has repeatedly jabbed Biden over the use of the autopen and last month, instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether it was related to his mental deterioration.

“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,” the president wrote in a memo to the Justice Department.

“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,” Trump said.

“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” Biden said in a statement at the time.

Biden told the Times that he did discuss the high-profile pardons of various malefactors, such as the J6 committee, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Gen. Mark Milley, with aides. Those included a slew of preventive actions that he issued hours before leaving the White House.

“We know how vindictive Trump is and I’ve no doubt they would have gone after Mark for no good reason,” Biden said, referring to Milley. “The general, you know. So they may read off his name — what’d I want? I told them I wanted to make sure he had a pardon because I knew exactly what Trump would do — without any merit, I might add.”

The former president also defended the pardons for his family members who are immunized for their role in the clan’s shady foreign business ventures.

“And my family didn’t do anything wrong. My sister, my brother-in-law, my — my brother, etc. And — and all it would do is, if they, if he went after them, would be, is run up legal bills. I just, I just know how he operates. And so I made — but I consciously made all those decisions, among others,” he said.

In a March post to Truth Social, Trump declared the preventive pardons of the J6 committee goon squad to be invalid.

“The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!” Trump wrote.