White House rejects Biden’s request for 'executive privilege' amid autopen investigations
WASHINGTON, DC: The White House rejected former President Joe Biden’s request for executive privilege amid congressional investigations into his administration’s use of the autopen.
Biden wrote in an October letter to the Archival Operations Division of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), according to a copy obtained by Fox News, “I am concerned that disclosure of these materials would damage important institutional interests of the Presidency, including by impairing the ability of future presidents to receive robust, candid advice from their close advisers. For these reasons, I hereby assert executive privilege over the documents listed.”
WH denies Biden’s executive privilege claim as autopen probe intensifies
In the letter obtained by Fox News, Biden wrote, “I have raised no objections to multiple requests for presidential records from my Administration, and hundreds of documents have already been provided to Congress pursuant to those requests, but the records now proposed for release include documents reflecting presidential decisionmaking and deliberations and other materials that are protected by executive privilege.”
Meanwhile, White House Counsel David Warrington responded on Tuesday, December 16, to the request in a letter to NARA, denying the claim of executive immunity. Executive immunity protects government officials, notably the president, from lawsuits or prosecution over actions conducted while performing official duties.
Warrington wrote, “As President Trump has stated, the abuse of the autopen that took place during the Biden Presidency, and the extraordinary efforts to shield President Biden’s diminished faculties from the public, must be subject to a full accounting to ensure nothing similar ever happens again.” The letter continued, “Similarly, President Biden’s repeated abuses of the rights of American citizens during the pandemic and his politically motivated efforts to investigate Members of Congress must also be subject to a full accounting to ensure nothing similar ever happens again.”
“Congress has a compelling need in service of its legislative functions to understand the circumstances that led to all these horrific events,” it added.
Biden autopen controversy grows over disputed presidential signatures
David Warrington has also pointed out that a thorough investigation is necessary because Joe Biden’s signature requesting executive immunity does not match the signatures on the pardons he issued for his son, Hunter Biden, or other family members.
The White House counsel wrote, “Remarkably, that letter demonstrates the importance of these congressional investigations. President Biden’s signature does not match the one he used to pardon his family or his son,” and included photos of the three different signatures. The former president has denied accusations that official presidential documents were signed using the autopen without his knowledge, brushing off the claims as “ridiculous.”
In a statement issued in June 2025, Biden said, “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false.”
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, a conservative think tank, first investigated the use of an autopen earlier in 2025 and found that the same signature appeared on several executive orders and other official documents.
However, Biden’s signature on the document announcing his departure from the 2024 race was different from the alleged autopen signature. President Donald Trump announced earlier in December that he would terminate all documents allegedly signed by autopen during Biden’s era.
