President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office on Feb. 11, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump said Friday he will try to reverse any law, pardon or still-in-effect executive order that former President Joe Biden signed with an autopen, though it wasn’t immediately clear how that would work or whether it would be legal. 

Trump declared in a social media post that any documents Biden signed with the autopen are “hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect.”

“I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally,” Trump alleged. “Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The White House press office didn’t immediately respond to a request for the list of documents Trump believes he has the ability to rescind based on the manner they were signed.

States Newsroom also asked the Trump administration if officials believe the president would need to sign an executive order in order to implement his social media post. 

Experts dismissed earlier autopen challenge 

The post was similar to one Trump published in March when he claimed any pardons Biden signed with the autopen were void, something legal experts said at the time was “absurd” and a “red herring.”

Trump brought up his frustration with autopen use again in June when he ordered the White House legal counsel and U.S. attorney general to investigate when and why Biden administration staff used an autopen. 

Trump said during an Oval Office appearance at the time he hadn’t found any evidence Biden aides violated the law.

“No, but I’ve uncovered the human mind,” Trump said. “I was in a debate with the human mind and I didn’t think he knew what the hell he was doing. So it’s one of those things, one of those problems. We can’t ever allow that to happen to our country.”

Biden and spokespeople working for him have repeatedly said he knew what official documents were being signed in his name and rejected claims that White House staff used the autopen without his authorization or knowledge. 

Biden released a statement in June following the Trump memorandum, saying the investigation “is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations.”

“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,” Biden wrote at the time. “Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”

While presidents have regularly rescinded their predecessors executive orders, usually within their first few days or weeks in office, Congress would very likely need to act in order to alter or eliminate any laws that Biden signed with an autopen. Trump seeking to overturn a law, or part of a law, unilaterally would likely lead to a lawsuit over whether he holds that power. 

Trump doesn’t cite legal authority

It also wasn’t immediately clear what legal authority Trump believes he has as president to undo pardons if Biden used an autopen to sign the documents. 

David Super, a constitutional and administrative law professor at Georgetown University, told States Newsroom in March that “the Constitution does not require signatures for pardons. It simply says the president has the power to pardon.”

“So if President Biden wanted to simply verbally tell someone they’re pardoned, he could do that. It wouldn’t have to be in writing at all,” he said. “Administratively, of course, we want things in writing. It makes things a lot simpler, but there’s no constitutional requirement.”

Ashley Murray contributed to this report. 

Charlotte Stone, 18, of Virginia Beach, Virginia, held a sign depicting President Donald Trump with a Hitler mustache, at the "We Are All DC" march Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025, in the District of Columbia to protest the deployment of National Guard troops in the nation's capital. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — House Democrats demanded Thursday that President Donald Trump rescind two ominous directives they say target protest and dissent in the United States, including directing federal law enforcement resources to investigate groups that are “anti-American” and “anti-Christian.”

In a letter to the White House the lawmakers sharply criticize a “complete and utter lack of any legal basis” for Trump’s Sept. 22 executive order “Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorism Organization” and his Sept. 25 memo directing federal law enforcement to investigate and disrupt a wide range of activities by groups or individuals with a vast array of beliefs.

“While protecting public safety and countering genuine threats are essential responsibilities of government, the sweeping language and broad authority in these directives pose serious constitutional, statutory, and civil liberties risks, especially if used to target political dissent, protest, or ideological speech,” states the letter led by Democratic Reps. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, Jared Huffman of California and Pramila Jayapal of Washington. 

The letter comes just two days ahead of thousands of nationwide demonstrations, dubbed “No Kings Day,” against the activities of the Trump administration, including the deployment of federal law enforcement and National Guard troops in major American cities.

“Regardless of whether the President agrees with someone’s political views, the Constitution guarantees their right to speak and assemble peacefully. Officials must not label individuals as ‘supporting Antifa’ or ‘coordinating with Antifa’ based solely on their protected speech,” according to the letter. 

“Antifa” is not one group. Rather, it’s an ideology that disapproves of the fascist style of governance.

The letter continues: “In fact, neither the memo nor the executive order clearly defines ‘Antifa’ as a specific entity. Instead, the executive order conflates nonviolent protest and activism with doxing and violent behavior. Without clear definitions and limits, this vague framing could subject lawful political expression and assembly to the same treatment as terrorism.”

Twenty-eight other Democratic lawmakers signed alongside Pocan, co-chair of the Congressional Equity and Labor caucuses; Jayapal, former head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus; and Huffman, founder of the Congressional Freethought caucus.

When asked about the letter, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson responded to States Newsroom: “The only thing Democrats love defending more than criminal illegal aliens is Antifa.”

Trump memo

Trump’s Sept. 25 national security memo orders the National Joint Terrorism Task Force and its local offices to create a comprehensive national strategy to not only disrupt and prosecute political violence but also to investigate funders and employees of organizations “that aid and abet” those who commit violence or who are “recruiting and radicalizing” people to do so. 

There are about 200 such task forces in the U.S., including at least one in each Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 56 field offices and the rest in local, state and other federal agencies, according to the FBI.

The memo states that “Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

Such conduct, according to the memo, is organized “through a variety of fora, including anonymous chat forums, in-person meetings, social media, and even educational institutions” and then escalates “to organized doxing.”

The directive also instructs Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, who also happens to be Bessent after Trump fired his original pick two months into the job, to be on the lookout for suspect funding streams and ensure no tax-exempt entities “directly or indirectly” finance political violence or domestic terrorism. 

‘Fever dream of conspiracies’

The memo does not create any new parts of the criminal code or grant any new powers to federal law enforcement, including the FBI and agents who work in the criminal investigations units at the Department of Treasury and IRS.

The American Civil Liberties Union described the memo as “a fever dream of conspiracies, outright falsehoods, and the president’s distorted equation of criticism of his policies by real or perceived political opponents with ‘criminal and terroristic conspiracies.’”

“Through the memo, the president instructs federal departments and law enforcement agencies to use authorities they already have and focus them on investigations of civil society groups — including nonprofits, activists, and donors — to ‘disrupt’ and ‘prevent’ the president’s fever-dream version of ‘terrorism’ and ‘political violence,’” the ACLU’s Hina Shamsi wrote in an Oct. 15 article posted on the organization’s website.