A legal expert is pushing back against President Donald Trump’s claim that he can wipe out pardons, executive orders, or proclamations issued by Joe Biden simply because Biden used an autopen to sign them. Trump has argued that Biden’s use of the device, an automated signature machine makes his presidential actions invalid. But according to Eric A. Baldwin, a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford Law School, there is no legal basis for that argument.
Baldwin told The Mirror US that a sitting president cannot “invalidate” the actions of a previous administration based on the method used to sign them. “There is no legal basis for the idea that a president can invalidate a predecessor’s actions simply because they were signed with an autopen,” he said.
He also explained that constitutional law directly contradicts Trump’s suggestion that pardons or presidential orders signed by Biden could be undone retroactively. “Constitutional law does not give a new president the power to retroactively void pardons, executive orders, or proclamations. Pardons are constitutionally final once granted.”
The principle is backed by legal precedent, including the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Klein, which reinforced that pardons issued by a president cannot have their legal effects overturned after the fact. The use of an autopen is irrelevant in the eyes of the law.
Baldwin noted that Biden is far from the first president to use the signature device. “Presidents have used mechanical or proxy signature devices going back for at least 50 years,” he said. That list includes George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Trump himself. He explained that modern reliance on the autopen is grounded in a 2005 Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion, which concluded that presidents may legally use the device to sign legislation. “No court has rejected this view,” he added.
That same legal foundation means Biden’s executive actions remain fully valid regardless of how they were signed. Even if Trump objects to Biden’s orders, Baldwin emphasized that there is a specific process for altering or eliminating them. “To replace or rescind an executive order, the president must issue a new written order,” he said. A future administration cannot simply declare an existing one invalid.
The same rules apply to federal regulations. Baldwin said, “To unwind regulations, the administration must follow the procedures in the Administrative Procedure Act, including notice and comment and a reasoned explanation for any change.” In other words, the next president — even Trump — would have to go through the standard bureaucratic and legal steps, not bypass them through a blanket declaration.
Despite this, Trump reiterated his stance on Truth Social. In a recent post, he claimed he would nullify any action taken by Biden if it had been signed using what he called an “unauthorized” autopen. “Any and all Documents, Proclamations, Executive Orders, Memorandums, or Contracts, signed by Order of the now infamous and unauthorized ‘AUTOPEN,’ within the Administration of Joseph R. Biden Jr., are hereby null, void, and of no further force or effect,” Trump wrote.
Baldwin’s analysis makes clear that such a declaration would carry no legal weight. A president cannot erase laws, pardons, or executive actions with a single sweeping statement — nor can they claim that a long-accepted signing tool strips those acts of legitimacy. The Constitution, federal precedent, and decades of bipartisan White House practice all point to the same conclusion: Biden’s autopen signatures are fully legal, and Trump would need to follow the proper process — not rhetoric — if he wanted to change any of his successor’s policies.
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