The Associated Press inadvertently dunked on itself and spotlighted its shameless hypocrisy by manufacturing a sham autopen controversy involving President Donald Trump.
The clown show unfolded Friday, after the left-wing outlet published a story claiming Trump’s Nov. 7 presidential pardons were done via an “autopen,” and were not personally signed.
According to the AP, two handwriting experts claimed Trump’s signature on several of his Nov. 7 pardons were identical.
“Within hours of the online speculation, the administration replaced copies of the pardons with new ones that did not feature identical signatures,” the AP reported.
“The questions about Trump’s signature come amid a new flurry of clemency and weeks after the president claimed to not even know Changpeng Zhao, a crypto billionaire he pardoned last month.”
As a reminder, the Biden administration has been lambasted for allegedly using an autopen — a mechanical device that replicated his signature — to authorize thousands of presidential pardons and executive orders without his consent, in order to cover up the octogenarian’s mental incapacity.
BREAKING – It’s been revealed that by day five of Joe Biden’s presidency, the autopen had already begun being used, and by 2022 it was almost exclusively used for all pardons and executive actions, with zero record of Biden’s personal approval found. pic.twitter.com/RekaX2wCFw
— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) October 29, 2025
In a petty, tit-for-tat characteristic of the political left, the AP accused Trump aides of using an autopen for his Nov. 7 pardons.
This copycat faux scandal was perpetrated to mock Trump for criticizing the Biden administration’s apparent, rampant use of the autopen to hide Biden’s compromised mental faculties.
On Sunday, Trump aide Will Scharf fired back, torching the AP report as “100% fake news.”
“President Trump signed eight of the nine pardons at issue by hand in my presence,” Scharf wrote on X. “He hand-signed the ninth in the presence of a member of my team and others.”
“We don’t autopen pardons in this Administration,” he underscored.
This is 100% fake news.
President Trump signed eight of the nine pardons at issue by hand in my presence. He hand-signed the ninth in the presence of a member of my team and others.
We don’t autopen pardons in this Administration. That’s the story. https://t.co/3f3swD3tzu
— Will Scharf (@willscharf) November 17, 2025
Chad Gilmartin, a Justice Department spokesman, said the identical Trump signatures spotlighted by the AP were due to “a technical error where one of the signatures President Trump personally signed was mistakenly uploaded multiple times due to staffing issues caused by the Democrat shutdown.”
Similarly, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said Trump personally signs each pardon by hand.
Jackson also steamrolled the corporate media for hyperventilating over several alleged auto-penned pardons while ignoring the Biden administration’s apparent, years-long use of the autopen.
“The media should spend their time investigating Joe Biden’s countless auto penned pardons, not covering a non-story,” Jackson told the AP.
There are several absurdities spotlighted by the AP’s disingenuous pearl-clutching.
First, it’s not at all shocking that Trump wouldn’t recall who “Changpeng Zhao” is when asked about it off-hand.
re you confident Trump personally signs all presidential pardons?
Even many Asians would be stumped when asked who “Changpeng Zhao” is, since he’s commonly known “CZ,” or as the former CEO of Binance.
Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao talks about his company’s first acquisition and future plans: https://t.co/YFOFsYB9Vg by @YoavVilner pic.twitter.com/0Lp9J8HD8u
— Forbes Crypto (@ForbesCrypto) August 2, 2018
For the sake of argument, even if nine Trump pardons had been autopenned, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the mountain of autopenned pardons by Biden.
During his tenure, Biden issued a record 4,245 pardons and commutations, according to Pew Research data.
Of those, more than 50 percent were signed using an autopen, based on an analysis by the Heritage Foundation.
A damning, 100-page report released on Oct. 28 by the House Oversight Committee exposed how Biden aides exercised presidential authority — without his consent — in order to cover up his alleged senility.
In Trump’s case, no one is alleging that his aides used an autopen on Nov. 7 (that’s one day of his tenure) without his authorization to cover up a mental decline.
The fact that the left-wing AP is trying to manufacture a scandal from a supposed one-day lapse underscores how grossly negligent and biased the outlet was when running cover for Biden for four straight years.
So spare us the faux outrage at this fake scandal.
No one’s buying it.
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