Reports emerging in early 2025 have ignited a firestorm of speculation about President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen to sign nearly all laws and executive orders during his tenure, raising serious questions about his mental awareness and capacity to govern. According to an investigation cited by PJ Media on March 6, 2025, the only document Biden personally signed with a pen was his July 2024 letter announcing his withdrawal from the presidential race—every other legislative act, from the American Rescue Plan to his 77 executive orders, allegedly bears the mark of a mechanical signature device. This revelation, if true, suggests that Biden may not have been directly engaged in the act of approving critical policies, prompting critics to ask whether he fully understood the scope and implications of decisions attributed to him, or if his administration was effectively run by unelected staffers wielding his authority via a robotic proxy.

The use of an autopen isn’t inherently illegal—presidents like George W. Bush and Barack Obama employed it for routine correspondence—but its near-exclusive application to major legislation and orders under Biden marks a stark departure from precedent, fueling doubts about his cognitive state. Posts on X and conservative outlets like OversightPR have seized on this, arguing that if Biden, whose public gaffes and apparent frailty intensified after 2022, was too diminished to physically sign documents, he might also have been too impaired to comprehend their contents. The Durham Report’s 2023 findings, which criticized the FBI’s handling of the Steele Dossier, already cast a shadow over Biden’s administration; now, the autopen controversy amplifies claims that he was a figurehead, with aides like Ron Klain or Susan Rice potentially steering the ship—a scenario that, if proven, could undermine the legitimacy of his presidency and spark a constitutional crisis over who truly held executive power.
 

Defenders of Biden argue that the autopen’s use reflects logistical efficiency, not mental decline, noting that he remained active in public speeches and policy discussions until his exit. Yet, the sheer volume of autopen signatures—contrasted with Trump’s hands-on Sharpie flourish or Obama’s selective Cross pen use—invites skepticism about how engaged Biden was with the details of governance. Was he briefed on each order, or did he merely nod along as staff presented pre-approved plans? The lack of transparency from the White House, coupled with Biden’s documented struggles in debates and interviews by 2023, leaves a gaping question: if the president wasn’t physically signing laws, was he mentally present to lead? As Kash Patel’s FBI digs into this, the nation faces a reckoning—could four years of policy, from climate action to immigration reform, rest on a foundation of automated consent rather than conscious command?