Patriot Brief
Trump administration rejected Biden’s attempt to shield autopen records with executive privilege.
DOJ says autopen use and staff actions require full congressional scrutiny.
Investigators are now cleared to access Biden-era autopen documents.
This is one of those stories that sounds technical on the surface but is actually pretty damning once you stop and think about it. Joe Biden tried to block Congress from seeing records related to the use of the autopen during his presidency, claiming executive privilege. The Trump administration wasn’t having it — and rightly so.
Executive privilege exists to protect legitimate presidential decision-making, not to act as a legal tarp thrown over questionable conduct after the fact. If staffers were effectively running the presidency while Biden’s signature was being stamped onto documents, that’s not a “process issue.” That’s a constitutional problem.
What makes this worse is the timing and scope. These aren’t random documents — they go to the heart of who was actually making decisions, issuing pardons, and exercising presidential authority. Congress has every right to know.
Trump’s White House counsel put it plainly: privilege shouldn’t be used to hide actions that undermine the Constitution. On that point, he’s exactly right.
From Western Journal:
Former President Joe Biden has lost a battle in his effort to limit the investigation into the use of the autopen during his presidency.
Biden had contacted the National Archives in an effort to claim executive privilege over certain documents, but the Trump administration turned down the request Tuesday, Fox News has reported.
“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,” Biden said in an Oct. 1 letter to the Archival Operations Division of the National Archives and Records Administration
“For these reasons, I hereby assert executive privilege over the documents listed,” he wrote.
Time to put the “pardoned” criminals back in jail and hold the staffers to account.
President Trump is right—it’s not in the best interest of Americans to shield the records relating to the Biden autopen.
Thank you, Mr. President, for standing up for my special access request. pic.twitter.com/dR7629riRv
— Senator Eric Schmitt (@SenEricSchmitt) December 16, 2025
“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,” Biden wrote.
White House Counsel David Warrington said in a letter to the Archives that the claim for presidential immunity should be rejected.
“President Trump has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified as to any of the documents requested by the United States Congress,” the letter to the Archives said.
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