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Straits Times
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Straits Times
Why Trump is attacking Biden over autopen signatures
Autopens have been use in the White House for decades, opening up the possibility that anyone with access to the device could exercise presidential power. For decades, presidents have used autopens to keep up with the relentless stream of paperwork that crosses their desk. But it's not just a matter of saving them from hand cramps. When the president is travelling, time-sensitive documents – such as bills to keep the government open – may need a signature right away, and it's not always feasible to fly the original documents to wherever the president is. Still, the use of the autopen has long raised questions, because it opens up the possibility that anyone with access to the device could exercise presidential power, without a clear written record that the president himself approved it. The latest round of controversy concerns US President Donald Trump's claim that certain orders issued by his predecessor, Mr Joe Biden, are invalid because they were signed using an autopen . Among the contested actions are a series of preemptive pardons for high-profile adversaries of Mr Trump. Mr Trump has also suggested that aides to Biden may have affixed Mr Biden's signature to official documents without the president's authorisation. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore $3b money laundering case: MinLaw acts against 4 law firms, 1 lawyer over seized properties Business 'Some cannot source outside China': S'pore firms' challenges and support needed amid US tariffs Multimedia From local to global: What made top news in Singapore over the last 180 years? World Trump arms Ukraine and threatens sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil Singapore Turning tragedy into advocacy: Woman finds new purpose after paralysis Opinion Sumiko at 61: Everything goes south when you age, changing your face from a triangle to a rectangle Sport World Aquatics C'ship women's 10km open water swimming event delayed by a day due to water quality Singapore HSA intensifies crackdown on vapes; young suspected Kpod peddlers nabbed in Bishan, Yishun In an interview with the New York Times on July 10, Mr Biden denied the charge . 'I made every decision,' he said. He added his use of the signing device for clemency actions was a practical decision because 'we're talking about a whole lot of people.' The Trump White House, the Justice Department and Congress have all launched investigations into Mr Biden's use of the autopen. Here's what to know about the device that has repeatedly been implicated in presidential controversies. What is an autopen? An autopen is a device that replicates a signature using a mechanical stylus, making the signature appear to be handwritten. The earliest mechanical writing device, patented in 1803, allowed users to create a duplicate of the letter they were writing by connecting two pens through a system of levers. The user would write with the first pen, and the second would move across a second piece of paper in synchrony. President Thomas Jefferson used it extensively, calling it 'the finest invention of the present age.' The technology eventually evolved to the point where a robot arm could duplicate a signature without the user's involvement. Those robotic autopens became popular across the federal government in the 1940s, when Mr Harry Truman became the first president to use one. How have presidents used autopens? At first, presidents used autopens to sign ceremonial mass mailings like holiday cards and letters of condolences. To maintain the illusion that correspondents were getting a genuine presidential autograph, the White House was typically circumspect about its use of the device. Then, in 1968, Mr Lyndon B. Johnson allowed his to be photographed for a National Enquirer article under the headline, 'The Robot That Sits in for the President.' In 2005, White House lawyers asked the Justice Department for an opinion on whether the president may sign a bill by autopen, which no president had done. The DOJ concluded that under the historical and legal meaning of the word 'sign' in the early republic, 'a person may sign a document by directing that his signature be affixed to it by another,' and that 'the President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill to sign it.' What the president cannot do, the Justice Department said, is delegate the decision about whether to sign a bill. Mr Barack Obama became the first president to sign a bill with an autopen when, in 2011, he remotely signed an extension of the Patriot Act with the device while in Europe. In all, he used it to sign at least seven time-sensitive bills. He also used it for at least 78 pardons in the last month of his presidency. Mr Trump told reporters he has used an autopen, but only for unimportant papers. Did Biden use autopens? Yes. According to the New York Times, Mr Biden used an autopen on 25 pardon and commutation warrants between December 2024 and the end of his presidency. He is also confirmed to have used an autopen to remotely sign a short funding extension for the Federal Aviation Administration while traveling in San Francisco in May 2024. Whether he used the device in other cases is less clear. On March 6, the Oversight Project, an arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, sparked Mr Trump's interest in Mr Biden's usage of the autopen by pointing out that digital records of Biden's executive orders published in the Federal Register all appear to have the same signature. However, the Office of the Federal Register said that's true of all presidents: The publication has one graphic image of a president's signature that it uses on all presidential documents, and Mr Trump's executive orders, too, would all look like they had the same signature in the register. The versions archived in the official journal of the executive branch are not images of the actual signed orders. Is a pardon signed by autopen legally sound? During Mr Obama's presidency, Republicans raised objections to his use of the autopen to sign legislation. In 2011, a group of Republican members of Congress signed a letter demanding he re-sign the Patriot Act extension by hand and end the practice of signing bills with an autopen. However, the Obama administration leaned on the 2005 DOJ opinion to justify the use of autopens, and the practice was never challenged in court. Pardons present a separate use case from legislation, and presidents are probably on even firmer legal ground there. A 1929 Justice Department opinion on pardons held that 'neither the Constitution nor statute prescribed the method by which executive clemency shall be exercised or evidenced. It is wholly for the president to decide.' In 2024, a federal appeals court found that a presidential pardon doesn't even have to be in writing. The decision – which was issued in a case brought by an inmate who said Mr Trump had verbally promised to commute his sentence – found that 'nothing in the Constitution restricts the President's exercise of the clemency power to commutations that have been rendered through a documented writing.' A political scientist who assembled a database of clemency warrants issued by presidents since George Washington said it contained a large number of unsigned – but legally unquestioned – warrants. BLOOMBERG
Straits Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
Democrats must ‘toughen up' against Trump, Obama tells donors
The former president's words were a critique of the party's elites for having gone quiet when they were sorely needed to step up. WASHINGTON – Former President Barack Obama has a stern critique for members of his party: Too many have been cowed into silence. In private remarks to party donors on the night of July 11, Mr Obama scolded Democrats for failing to speak out against President Donald Trump and his policies, suggesting they were shrinking from the challenge out of fear of retribution. 'It's going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it's going to require Democrats to just toughen up,' Mr Obama said at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee at the home of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. 'What I have been surprised by is the degree to which I've seen people who, when I was president, or progressives, liberals, stood for all kinds of stuff, who seem like they are kind of cowed and intimidated and shrinking away from just asserting what they believe, or at least what they said they believe,' he added. Locked out of power in Washington, Democrats have been largely arguing among themselves about how to confront a hostile Trump administration. Mr Obama's remarks were circulated by his office on July 14. He expressed particular disdain for law firms that he said had been willing to 'set aside the law' in response to Mr Trump's actions 'not because, by the way, that they're going to be thrown in jail, but because they might lose a few clients and might not be able to finish that kitchen rehab at their Hampton house. I'm not impressed'. Mr Obama did not mention Columbia University, his alma mater, which is on the verge of paying hundreds of millions of dollars to settle with the Trump administration over accusations it permitted antisemitism on campus, or identify any of the prominent Democratic law firms that have made deals with Mr Trump's White House. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Business 'Some cannot source outside China': S'pore firms' challenges and support needed amid US tariffs Multimedia From local to global: What made top news in Singapore over the last 180 years? World Trump arms Ukraine and threatens sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil Singapore Turning tragedy into advocacy: Woman finds new purpose after paralysis Opinion Sumiko at 61: Everything goes south when you age, changing your face from a triangle to a rectangle Sport World Aquatics C'ship women's 10km open water swimming event delayed by a day due to water quality Singapore HSA intensifies crackdown on vapes; young suspected Kpod peddlers nabbed in Bishan, Yishun Singapore Ex-cop charged after he allegedly went on MHA portal, unlawfully shared info with man But the former president's comments were interpreted by people in the room as a critique of the party's elites for having gone quiet when they were sorely needed to step up, according to a person who attended. The excerpts provided by Mr Obama's office contained no evidence of physician-heal-thyself reflectiveness. Mr Obama, after all, has scarcely been at the tip of the Democratic spear in resisting Mr Trump. He has issued few public statements opposing Trump administration actions and has yet to appear in 2025 at a rally, town hall or other public event staged by opponents of Mr Trump. Mr Obama has spent much of his post-presidential life producing movies , documentaries and podcasts while building a beachfront compound in Hawaii and playing golf on Martha's Vineyard. In June, Mr Obama appeared in a conversation in Connecticut with celebrity historian Heather Cox Richardson during which he said the country was 'dangerously close' to sliding into autocracy. On July 11, not only did Mr Obama scold Democrats who have failed to speak out against Mr Trump and his administration, he also appeared to mock the level of sacrifice or risk-taking that doing so required. He invoked the 9-foot-by-9-foot prison cell in which anti-apartheid icon and politician Nelson Mandela spent 27 years, saying, 'Nobody's asking for that kind of courage.' Mr Obama warned that the country was in danger of backsliding on the steady social progress it has made since World War II – a period 'in which everything kept getting better, more or less,' he said. 'For most of our lives, it was easy to stand for equality and justice, et cetera,' Mr Obama said. 'You didn't really have to make a lot of sacrifices. That hasn't been true for most of human history or American history. It's still not true in most of the world. So these are moments where your values are tested and you have to stand up for them.' 'Don't tell me you're a Democrat, but you're kind of disappointed right now, so you're not doing anything,' Mr Obama added. 'Don't say that you care deeply about free speech and then you're quiet. No, you stand up for free speech when it's hard. When somebody says something that you don't like, but you still say, you know what, that person has the right to speak. It is, you know, what's needed now is courage.' During the fundraiser, Mr Obama praised the Democratic nominees for governor of New Jersey, Representative Mikie Sherrill, and Virginia, former Representative Abigail Spanberger. He also urged donors to contribute to the Democratic National Committee, which his own aides worked to diminish during his presidency. Mr Obama also waded into a dispute between the party's left and some moderates, telling the donors that, whatever their ideology, it was incumbent on Democrats to produce tangible results for voters if they hoped to win elections and regain power. 'You want to deliver for people and make their lives better? You got to figure out how to do it,' he said. 'I don't care how much you love working people. They can't afford a house because all the rules in your state make it prohibitive to build.' NYTIMES
Straits Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
China, India should work towards ‘win-win' cooperation, says Chinese foreign minister
Find out what's new on ST website and app. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China and India should 'adhere to the direction of good-neighborliness and friendship'. Beijing - Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on July 14 that Beijing and New Delhi should work towards mutual trust and 'win-win' cooperation, after talks with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, state news agency Xinhua reported. China and India should 'adhere to the direction of good-neighborliness and friendship' and 'find a way for mutual respect and trust, peaceful coexistence, common development and win-win cooperation', Mr Wang said, according to Xinhua. The two foreign ministers met in Beijing on July 14 as the two rivals seek to repair ties following a 2020 clash on their border. The world's two most populous nations are intense rivals competing for strategic influence across South Asia, and their 3,500km frontier has been a perennial source of tension. The 2020 clash between their troops led to a four-year military standoff, but they agreed in October on patrols in disputed areas. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China's President Xi Jinping met for the first time in five years later that month, agreeing to work on improving relations. New Delhi is concerned over Beijing's increasing presence in the Indian Ocean, seeing the region as firmly within its sphere of influence. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Business 'Some cannot source outside China': S'pore firms' challenges and support needed amid US tariffs Multimedia From local to global: What made top news in Singapore over the last 180 years? World Trump arms Ukraine and threatens sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil Singapore Turning tragedy into advocacy: Woman finds new purpose after paralysis Opinion Sumiko at 61: Everything goes south when you age, changing your face from a triangle to a rectangle Sport World Aquatics C'ship women's 10km open water swimming event delayed by a day due to water quality Singapore HSA intensifies crackdown on vapes; young suspected Kpod peddlers nabbed in Bishan, Yishun Singapore Ex-cop charged after he allegedly went on MHA portal, unlawfully shared info with man Another source of tension is the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader India has hosted since he and thousands of other Tibetans fled Chinese troops who crushed an uprising in their capital Lhasa in 1959. The 90-year-old Dalai Lama says only his India-based organisation has the right to identify his eventual successor. China insists that it would have final say on who succeeds the Tibetan spiritual leader. AFP
