Joe Biden’s White House portrait replaced with photo of autopen
Donald Trump has replaced a portrait of Joe Biden in the White House with a picture of an autopen.
The US president has displayed a picture of the device, which is used for replicating signatures, where a photo of Mr Biden should be on his new “presidential walk of fame”, which features portraits of all former US leaders.
Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed the autopen was used by Mr Biden’s aidesto sign legislation and pardons in his name.
Mr Trump says the device effectively ran the country because the former president, who left office aged 82, was not capable of doing so himself.
Autopens are routinely used by the White House and were first approved under George W Bush in 2005.
Margo Martin, White House communications adviser, posted a video on social media showing the new “walk of fame”, where black-and-white portraits of presidents are displayed in golden frames.
Between two pictures of Mr Trump, the 45th and 47th president, is a picture of an autopen replicating Mr Biden’s signature, above a plaque reading: “Joseph R Biden, Jr.”
Mr Trump, who lost the 2020 election to Mr Biden, has repeatedly labelled his predecessor’s four years in the White House the “autopen presidency”.
In June, he ordered an investigation into Mr Biden’s use of the autopen and whether the Democrat’s aides had mounted a cover-up to conceal his “cognitive decline”.
Ed Martin, the US pardon attorney and a Trump loyalist, said he would investigate whether the former president was “competent and whether others were taking advantage of him through use of autopen or other means”.
Mr Biden has pushed back on the claims, saying when the investigation was opened: “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency.
“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
Mr Trump has admitted to using an autopen during his first term, although he claimed this was purely for “very unimportant papers”.
Barack Obama became the first president to use the autopen to sign legislation in May 2011.
On Sunday, while attending the memorial service for Charlie Kirk, conservative influencer, Mr Trump issued another attack on Mr Biden, who ended his re-election campaign for the White House almost a year ago.
“When Joe Biden used to get up, remember the speeches? ‘We will stop Maga. We will stop Maga,’” he said, seemingly departing from his script.
“He could barely get the words out.”
[Source: Daily Telegraph]
