Ewan Palmer writes for Newsweek about President Donald Trump’s latest attack on his predecessor’s final actions.
President Donald Trump has said that Joe Biden’s 11th-hour pardons of members of Congress who investigated the January 6 attack are “void, vacant and of no further effect.”In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that the parsons issued by his predecessor are not valid because they were allegedly signed using an autopen—a device that replicates a person’s signature.
Trump also warned members of the former January 6 House select committee that they would now be “subject to investigation at the highest level.”
Biden issued last-minute preemptive pardons to members of the January 6 committee to prevent Trump from seeking “revenge” against them.
Trump repeatedly claimed that the January 6 committee, led by Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and former Republican Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, “destroyed” evidence collected over the course of their two-year investigation. Trump has never provided evidence to support this claim.
Biden also issued preemptive pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, who led the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and retired General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who has been highly critical of Trump’s actions around the January 6 attack.
Trump announced that Biden’s pardons are of “no further force or effect” in a social media post just after midnight on Monday.
Trump’s argument that Biden’s pardons are void due to his alleged use of an autopen follows similar claims made recently by the Oversight Project, an arm of the right-wing think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation.
The group alleges that Biden used the same autopen signature on a number of official documents, including presidential pardons. Several Trump allies have reignited criticism of Biden’s apparent cognitive decline and questioned whether he personally approved the actions.
Autopens are machines designed to automatically replicate a handwritten signature. They have been used by numerous presidents and officials to sign large volumes of documents.
