Michelle Obama secretly signed Biden's pardons with an autopen
Trump amplified posts claiming Michelle Obama secretly entered the Oval Office and used Biden's autopen to sign pardons. The claim is fabricated with no supporting evidence.
What we know
Trump shared posts from Alex Jones and pro-Trump commentator Mila Joy claiming that Michelle Obama secretly entered the Oval Office and used President Biden's autopen to sign pardons.
There is no evidence for this. An autopen is a device that reproduces a signature and has long been used, legally, for routine presidential documents. The claim that a former first lady covertly operated it to sign clemency documents is a fabrication with no documentary or eyewitness support.
CNN examined the autopen conspiracy claims circulating on Truth Social and found them baseless. The broader autopen narrative attempts to cast doubt on the validity of official acts by inventing a hidden signer, but no such secret signing has been shown to have occurred.
Autopens have a long, well documented history in the White House going back decades, used by multiple presidents of both parties for routine correspondence, ceremonial documents, and in some cases, signing legislation while traveling. A 2005 opinion from the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel concluded that a president does not need to personally sign a bill by hand for it to become law, as long as the president has directed the signature, a legal basis that later administrations relied on for autopen use. This established legal framework is part of why the specific conspiracy theory, that Michelle Obama covertly operated the device to sign clemency actions without Biden's knowledge or authorization, requires evidence of a security breach at the White House far beyond simply establishing that an autopen was used.
The claim gained renewed attention when Republican members of Congress opened a formal review into how autopen signatures were used for a batch of pardons issued near the end of the Biden administration. That congressional review, reported on by CNN and other outlets, examined internal staffing and signature authorization procedures but did not produce evidence that Michelle Obama or anyone other than authorized White House staff operated the device. Legal scholars note that questioning whether proper authorization procedures were followed for a specific pardon is a legitimate oversight question, distinct from the conspiracy theory's specific and unsupported claim about who physically used the machine. Presidential historians point out that every modern White House, regardless of party, has relied on documented, authorized staff procedures for handling high-volume paperwork, and that the mere existence of an autopen or a signing procedure involving staff is not itself evidence of impropriety, since the legal requirement is that the president direct and authorize the signature, not that the president's hand physically touch every page. No sworn testimony, security log, or documented access record has ever placed Michelle Obama at the location or moment described in the viral claim, and the White House Secret Service maintains detailed access logs for the Oval Office that would be expected to reflect any such unauthorized entry if it had occurred.
Common claims
- Michelle Obama secretly signed pardons with the autopen.Not supported
- Biden's pardons are invalid because he did not sign them.Not supported