Embarrassing photos disappear quickly Trump himself probably uses the machine he mocked Biden for
Donald Trump had publicly mocked Joe Biden for signing pardons with a signature machine. Now documents prove it: The accusation falls back on the president himself.
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- The US Department of Justice published documents with identical Trump signatures, indicating the use of an "autopen".
- Trump had accused Biden of exactly that and publicly exposed him - including a photo of the device in the White House.
- The embarrassing images were quietly replaced shortly afterwards - Trump's spokesperson spoke of a "technical error".
US President Donald Trump is being criticized for a bizarre judicial fiasco: he of all people appears to have signed pardons with a so-called "autopen" - a machine that automatically reproduces his signature. This was reported by the news agency AP News.
Trump had sharply attacked his predecessor Joe Biden for precisely this practice. He even publicly declared that he would not recognize Biden's decrees because they were allegedly not "personally signed". In a tour of the White House, he had a picture of the machine hung up instead of a portrait of Biden - an open mockery.
However, the photos now published show that Trump's own signatures on several executive orders look exactly the same. A handwriting expert confirmed to AP News that these are most likely machine-reproduced signatures. Handwritten signatures are never identical.
Images disappeared again after a short time
Particularly embarrassing: the images in question disappeared from the Ministry of Justice website shortly after being uploaded and were replaced by new versions - this time with different signatures. However, the original images can still be found in web archives.
The Department of Justice is playing down the incident. Spokesman Chad Gilmartin said: "There's nothing to see here - President Trump signed seven pardons himself." The exchange of the images was merely due to a "technical error".
Since his return to the White House, Trump has pardoned over 1,600 people - including numerous supporters of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, as well as early convicted Republican George Santos.
