Trump claims the forgiveness of Biden for the January 6 Committee is ‘Cancel.’ Legal Expert Disagrees

President Donald Trump is aimed at one of his predecessors’ last actions in the office: preemptive forgiveness for members of the January 6 DPR select the committee.
In a late -late social media post, Trump claimed without proof that President Joe Biden used Autopen to sign forgiveness and hence he considered them “hereby stated that they were not valid, empty, and had no further strength or effect.”
Trump, who retaliated his political enemies felt as the focus point of his campaign 2024, said the committee members must “fully understand that they could be investigated at the highest level” even though there were no mistakes.
Apart from his claim, legal experts told ABC News that Trump did not have the power to cancel Biden’s actions.
The strength of a president’s clemency is fenced off in Article II of the constitution and “broad and almost unlimited,” said Jeffrey Crouch, Assistant Professor at the American University and the President’s forgiveness experts.
Some of its restrictions including that he can only apply to federal violations and cannot interfere with the strength of the congress impeachment.

President Donald Trump spoke to reporters watched by national security adviser Mike Waltz above the one -return Air Force to Washington, March 16, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
In 1929, the Department of Justice’s memo regarding forgiveness argued that “the constitution or any law did not determine the method with which executive forgiveness would be implemented or proven.”
“This is entirely a problem for the President to decide, as a practical question of administrative policy,” said the department. “There is no one other than the president who can use the power, but the power has carried out the method of making notes and evidence from it is only the details that he can recipe according to what he considers as a practical need and ownership of the situation.”
The memo was quoted in A Decision of the Federal Appeals Court Only last year said that forgiveness did not even need to write in writing.
And while Autopens (mechanical devices used to automatically add signatures to documents) have been studied in the past, the Department of Justice recently decided that they were constitutional and could be used for a president to sign the law into a law in a study assigned by President George W. Bush at that time.
Former President Barack Obama used Autopen to extend the Patriot law, prevent fiscal crisis and more during his government. Other presidents, including Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy, were also documented using devices or similar.
“If autopen is illegal, many actions and regulations that have been carried out by the president over the past four or five decades are null and void. This is a silly argument,” said Elaine Kamarck, a senior study of governance at the Brookings Institution.
“There is no in the constitution that requires that forgiveness must be signed without autopen. Obviously, it was the discovery of the 20th century, and the previous president did not have access to such technology. However, Trump did not have the authority to cancel the forgiveness of Biden, just like the next president did not have the authority to not have forgiveness at the university,” said Michael Gerhard, a constitution expert at the university.
ABC has asked the Biden Team and the White House at this time to learn more about the use of their autopen but has not received comments.

President Joe Biden delivered his farewell speech to the country from the White House oval office in Washington, January 15, 2025.
Mandel and/Pool/AFP through Figure
Above the Air Force on one Sunday night, Trump was asked whether there were executive orders or actions from Biden which included autopen would be considered zero.
“This is not my decision, it will get to the court,” Trump answered, “But I will say that they are null and void because I am sure Biden does not know that it happened, and someone uses autopen to sign and give reinforcement.”
Press Secretary of the White House Karoline Leavitt also suggested, without evidence, that Biden did not know the signature of his hand was attached to the forgiveness.
“Is the legal signature used without his consent or knowledge?” Leavitt said during the direction of Monday.
Asked specifically whether the lawyer at the White House told Trump that he had legal authority to cancel forgiveness because it was signed by Autopen, Leavitt said Trump only “asked for questions that I thought many journalists in this room should ask.”
Biden issued a for eleventh hours for only a few hours before Trump’s inauguration. He spoke several times in his last media interview on how he considered such a choice for people he was worried about being targeted in the next government, such as Liz Cheney or Anthony Fauci.
What will happen if Trump tries to ignore or challenge Biden’s actions?
“It can open the Pandora box if a president who sits trying to cancel forgiveness by one of their predecessors. A better rule is forgiveness – is it considered a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ decision – must be final,” Crouch said.
ABC News’ Molly Nagle and Nicholas Kerr contributed to this report.