President Donald Trump said on Friday, November 28, 2025, that he is terminating documents he alleges were signed by former President Joe Biden using an autopen rather than by hand. In a post on his social media account, Trump claimed that 92 percent of Biden-era signatures relied on the device and warned that if Biden now says he personally approved those signatures he could face perjury.
The White House did not release an immediate implementation memo detailing which documents would be targeted, how reviews would occur, or what standards would apply.
Trump’s message asserted that autopen use is impermissible without explicit presidential authorization. He added that he was canceling executive orders and “anything else that was not directly signed” by Biden.
The announcement follows months of debate over Biden’s document-signing practices and a separate directive earlier this year for federal lawyers to review Biden-era autopen usage. Major media outlets reported Friday’s statement and noted that Trump did not present evidence to support the 92 percent figure or identify a verification process.
What Trump says will be canceled
The president’s post indicated that executive orders, memoranda, proclamations, and other presidential documents could be swept in if they were autopen-signed without Biden’s direct approval. He highlighted executive orders that were widely discussed during Biden’s term, including measures on prescription drugs, environmental justice, and artificial intelligence.
Biden issued 162 executive orders from 2021 to 2025, according to the Federal Register, along with hundreds of other presidential documents published in the daily record. Any new cancellation policy would need to reconcile that published record with a signature-validation process that does not yet exist in public guidance.
Trump also suggested that staff who operated the autopen did so illegally, and he said he would nullify documents on that basis. The administration has not said whether it plans to differentiate among categories of documents, for example whether high-impact orders will be reviewed first or whether ceremonial items would be excluded.
Agencies typically require instructions when executive directives are rescinded so that programs, grants, and enforcement priorities can be wound down in an orderly way. None of that detail was released alongside the social media post.
What the law and prior practice say about autopen
Presidents and federal officials have used autopens for decades. The U.S. government has maintained mechanical signature devices since the Truman era, and historians note regular use for correspondence and routine documents.
A key legal touchstone is a 2005 opinion by the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, which concluded that a president may approve a bill and direct a subordinate to affix his signature with an autopen, and that such a bill would still become law. The opinion addresses the constitutional meaning of “sign” and explains that the personal physical act is not required if the president has in fact decided to sign.
Modern presidents have relied on that framework. In 2011, when President Barack Obama was abroad, the White House used an autopen to sign a short-term Patriot Act extension and publicly acknowledged it. Agencies and the Federal Register have continued to treat autopen-signed directives as valid when the president authorizes their use.
Nothing in Friday’s statement explained how Trump’s new position would interact with that legal precedent or with prior acknowledgments of autopen validity for executive acts that were authorized by the sitting president.
