obviously was not Joe Biden!
Now, we are faced with the legal question of whether those auto signatures are even valid. Personally, I think it is quite clear that they are not. If the president did not sign it, it is not valid. Sure, there is some precedent of Obama very publicly authorizing the use of the autopen, but that is a very different scenario.
Hunter Biden pardon is quite different. It was actually signed by hand. And I’ve never heard anyone even hint that that might not be valid (the vague pardon for crimes that “may have been committed” during a certain timeframe is indeed more than a bit dodgy).
But just why was that one signed by hand? And the fact that it was very much puts in doubt the validity of the autopen signatures. Did Joe Biden even know about them? We just don’t know.
But what we know is that someone else was driving the autopen. And Neera Tanden’s admission that she used the auto pen is quite damning.
Neera Tanden told members of the Oversight Committee on Tuesday that she “was responsible for handling the flow of documents to and from the president” and was authorized to direct autopen use between Oct 2021 to May 2023 when she served as staff secretary and senior advisor to Biden.
… The Oversight Committee is seeking answers as to “who was calling the shots” during Biden’s last two years in office and why the president’s signature on executive orders was increasingly replaced with the autopen device, even on days when Biden was physically in the White House.