US President Donald Trump says he will terminate former US president Joe Biden's executive orders that were signed by autopen, reigniting his long-running criticisms of the pardons Biden signed at the end of his last term.
It is a move that is illegally uncertain.
Trump has often drummed up outrage over Biden's alleged use of autopen to sign pardons, executive orders and other documents, in an effort to point out Biden's "cognitive decline".
An autopen mechanically replicates a person's signature.
"Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect," Trump said on social media.
"I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally."
Even though various autopen systems have been used by previous US presidents, including Barack Obama, Trump has said their use under Biden proved the then-president was mentally incapacitated and not in control of the White House.
Conservative legal commentator Ed Whelan said on social media that Trump was free to revoke executive orders, whether or not Biden personally signed them.
"But he doesn't have the same freedom with respect to 'anything else' (e.g., bills enacted by Congress, pardons) that Biden directed be signed by autopen," he said.
The US justice department in 2005 said the US president does not need to sign a bill by hand and can direct an official "to affix the president's signature to such a bill, for example by autopen".
In 2011, Obama became the first US president to sign a bill by autopen while in Europe.
In his last days in office, Biden issued pardons for people targeted by Trump, including Biden's own son, politicians who probed Trump, a military general who had criticised Trump and the country's top COVID-19 expert.
Biden was 82 when he left office, while Trump is 79 and due to leave office in January 2029.
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