Constitutional legal scholar Randy Barnett admonished Democrats’ rhetoric claiming democracy is at risk under the Trump administration when ‘the biggest constitutional scandal in US history’ played out under the Biden administration with the use of the autopen.
‘For all the talk of a ‘constitutional crisis’ or threats to ‘our democracy’ having the executive branch systematically run by unknown subordinates of a mentally incompetent president is the biggest constitutional scandal in US history – it’s called into question the legality of official acts done in his name but without proper authority,’ Barnett posted to X Monday.
‘Southern secession was a ‘constitutional crisis,’’ Barnett added in a follow-up message Tuesday. ‘This is a constitutional scandal.’
Barnett, a Georgetown University law professor who serves as the director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, was referring to an interview former President Joe Biden conducted with the New York Times defending his use of an autopen. Biden said he orally approved a long list of clemency and pardon actions at the end of his tenure, but that his aides used the autopen to officiate the actions.
Amid the Biden autopen controversy, Democratic lawmakers and left-wing media pundits have continued slamming Trump as a threat to democracy – which was a common talking point during the election cycle – and claiming his actions as president, such as deporting illegal immigrants and revoking visa privileges for some foreign students, have thrown the U.S. into a constitutional crisis.
Biden told the Times that he was aware of every pardon ahead of leaving office in 2024, which included clemency and commutation actions related to 2,500 nonviolent drug offenders in his final weeks in office alone.
‘I made every decision,’ Biden told the Times in a phone interview earlier in July that was published Sunday. He added that staff used the autopen for the pardons and commutations ‘because there were a lot of them.’
‘Mr. Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people, he and aides confirmed,’ the Times reported. ‘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.’
Biden also pardoned Anthony Fauci, former chief medical advisor to the president; former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley; and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots. Less than half an hour before Trump became president, Biden also pardoned members of his family, including his brothers James B. Biden and Francis W. Biden, sister Valerie Biden Owens and brother-in-law John T. Owens.
Autopen signatures are produced by a machine, as opposed to an authentic, handwritten signature.
The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project first investigated the Biden administration’s use of an autopen earlier in 2025 and found that the same signature was on a bevvy of executive orders and other official documents, while Biden’s signature on the document announcing his departure from the 2024 race varied from the apparent machine-produced signature.
The use of the autopen follows years of mounting concern that Biden’s mental acuity and health were deteriorating, which hit a fever pitch during the 2024 campaign cycle following the president’s disastrous debate performance against Trump. Biden ultimately dropped out of the race on July 21, 2024, and endorsed then-Vice President Kamala Harris to run in his place.
Since reclaiming the Oval Office, Trump has balked at his predecessor’s use of the autopen, claiming Biden’s staff allegedly used the pen to sign off on presidential actions unbeknownst to Biden.
‘I guarantee you he knew nothing about what he was signing, I guarantee you,’ Trump said Monday when asked about Biden’s interview with the Times.
Biden’s interview follows Trump sending a memo to the Department of Justice in June directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Biden administration aides conspired to deceive the public about his mental state, and simultaneously used an autopen to sign key presidential actions.
‘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,’ Trump wrote in his letter. ‘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.’
Biden said in his New York Times interview that Trump and other Republicans are ‘liars’ for claiming he was incapacitated as president and that his aides used the pen for official presidential actions.
‘They’re liars. They know it. 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,’ he said.