Who Controlled the Pen? Oversight Project Probes Biden’s Autopen Presidency
In a provocative new investigation, the Oversight Project, an arm of the Heritage Foundation, has ignited a political firestorm with a bold claim: “Whoever controlled the autopen controlled the Biden presidency.” The group asserts that nearly every official document bearing Joe Biden’s signature during his four-year term—from January 20, 2021, to January 20, 2025—was signed not by the former president’s hand, but by a mechanical autopen. The sole exception? His July 21, 2024, letter announcing his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race. This revelation, the Oversight Project argues, raises profound questions about the legitimacy of Biden’s administration and who truly held the reins of power.
The Autopen Enigma
An autopen is a device that replicates a person’s signature with mechanical precision, often used by public figures to manage the sheer volume of documents requiring their mark. Its use by U.S. presidents is not new—John F. Kennedy reportedly employed one, and George W. Bush famously used it to sign the 2002 Iraq War resolution while overseas. But the Oversight Project contends that Biden’s reliance on the autopen was unprecedented in scope, covering virtually all executive orders, proclamations, and official correspondence during his tenure.
The investigation began with a meticulous collection of Biden-signed documents. “We gathered every document we could find with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency,” the group stated in a post on X. By comparing these signatures, they found a striking consistency—too perfect, they argue, to be human. Examples from an August 2022 executive order and a December 2024 proclamation show identical loops and strokes, hallmarks of autopen precision. In contrast, the signature on Biden’s withdrawal letter is noticeably different: shakier, less uniform, and, according to the Oversight Project, the only clear evidence of Biden’s own hand.
A Signature of Doubt
The group’s findings have fueled speculation about Biden’s capacity and involvement in his administration, particularly in his later years as age-related concerns grew louder. One outlier beyond the withdrawal letter may be Biden’s December 2024 pardon of his son, Hunter Biden. Samuel Dewey, an attorney with Heritage, described this signature as “shaky” in an interview with Real America’s Voice, suggesting it too was handwritten. Yet, across thousands of other documents, the Oversight Project sees a pattern of delegation—or, as they imply, dereliction.
To bolster their case, they cite an anecdote from House Speaker Mike Johnson, who recounted a conversation in which Biden allegedly admitted he didn’t recall signing a 2024 executive order pausing liquid natural gas exports. If true, this lends credence to the theory that Biden may have been detached from key decisions, with the autopen serving as a proxy for unnamed aides or advisors.
Who Held the Power?
The Oversight Project stops short of naming specific culprits, but their rhetoric is pointed. “If Biden wasn’t signing these documents, who was authorizing the autopen?” asked Kyle Brosnan, the group’s chief counsel, in a statement to Fox News Digital. “And if someone else was calling the shots, what does that mean for the legitimacy of his presidency?” Theories abound on X and conservative media, with fingers pointing at figures like Vice President Kamala Harris, Chief of Staff Ron Klain (who served until 2023), or even a shadowy cabal of unelected bureaucrats.
Critics, however, dismiss the investigation as a partisan stunt. Legal scholars note that autopen use is well-established and does not inherently undermine a president’s authority, provided it is authorized by the president or his designee. “The Constitution doesn’t require a president to sign every document with a quill pen,” said Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University. “This is a manufactured controversy unless there’s evidence Biden was unaware or incapacitated.”
The Evidence So Far
Independent verification lends some weight to the Oversight Project’s claims about signature consistency. Fox News Digital analyzed over 20 executive orders from the Federal Register between 2021 and 2024, finding uniform signatures across the sample. Yet the group’s broader assertion—that autopen use equates to a hijacked presidency—remains speculative without concrete proof of unauthorized control.
The Oversight Project vows to continue its probe, leveraging Freedom of Information Act requests to uncover White House logs or correspondence about the autopen’s operation. “This isn’t just about a signature,” they wrote on X. “It’s about who was running America.”
A Legacy in Question
As Biden’s presidency recedes into history, the autopen controversy adds a layer of intrigue to an already polarizing tenure. For supporters, it’s a distraction from his policy achievements; for detractors, it’s evidence of a figurehead presidency. Whether the Oversight Project’s investigation unearths a smoking gun or fizzles into obscurity, it has already succeeded in one regard: planting seeds of doubt about who truly wielded power behind the Oval Office desk.