The issue is authority, not the physical act of signing or an ink signature. As long as the President has authorized the use of the autopen, documents signed with an autopen are legally valid,
Under the Constitution, pardons do not even need to be in writing,
This is consistent with the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel opinion on this issue. Trump or others who are challenging the pardons will have to establish that Biden did not authorize the autopen signatures or the pardons themselves,
The President has the right to grant trusted members of his Cabinet the right to formally sign his name, meaning even if Biden's team used an auto signature, pardons would still be valid,
Our findings suggest widespread use of an autopen to sign clemency warrants throughout the Biden Presidency,
The constitutional text is thus silent as to any particular form the President’s clemency act must take to be effective,
We may use it, as an example, to send some young person a letter because it’s nice,
Sorry J6ers. All of your 1000+ pardons were done with autopen."
The president possesses the power to pardon, but there is no specification (unlike for signing of bills) that this pardon be in writing,
At the beginning of each administration, the White House sends a sample of the President’s signature to the Office of the Federal Register, which uses it to create the graphic image for all Presidential Documents published in the Federal Register,
Even under Trump’s conception of unlimited presidential power, a future president could undo anything he did – and I assume he would not be happy with that,
Pardons are final and irrevocable,
Presidents historically have not personally signed grants of pardons for every individual they granted clemency to,
The DOJ opinion does give Biden cover here,
The law undoubtedly is, that when a pardon is complete, there is no power to revoke it, any more than there is power to revoke any other completed act.”
Everything was signed by autopen – almost everything,
If you do letters where people write in and they'd love to have a response and we write responses—I'll sign them whenever I can, but when I can't I will use an autopen."
But to use them for what they've used them for is terrible."
The President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law,
To sign pardons and all of the things that [Biden] signed with an autopen is disgraceful,