In the US we place a high value on signatures. The reality is that our signature is required for almost everything important we engage in. Petitions, checks, drivers license, buying a car or house, to name a few. One of the upcoming issues in real estate is going to be moving from requiring closing documents to be wet signed, to e signed. The infrastructure to protect e signatures is growing daily and will eventually allow for remote closings. When a piece of legislation or treaty is signed into law we see elaborate signing ceremonies, because the final step in the process is someone affixing their signature to the bill or treaty.
Enter the auto pen. Who cares if your favorite movie start or musician uses and auto pen to sign thousands of autographs? Well, collectors for starters. Because collectors know that personally signed autographs are more value than those signed with an auto pen.
Which brings us back to Joe Biden. We now know that Biden did not actually sign most, if not all, of the bulk pardons issued in his name. Which would seem to render them invalid. Lord knows what other things he couldn't be bothered to sign properly and what other official actions are now null and void.
Obviously there are instances where an auto pen is fine. There are multitudes of informal acts signed by the president (turkey pardons and the like) which can reasonably be signed by an auto pen. But are pardons and commutations in the same category? Can a president say "Pardon all of those people." and delegate their power to others? If so, then shouldn't the process be tightly monitored and controlled to prevent someone from slipping things into the pile of things to be signed?
It's possible that this single issue from the Biden presidency might have the most significant ramifications in the long term. If nothing else, there should be a formalized system that regulates what can be auto signed and what must be personally signed.
The current revelations call into question the legitimacy many of Biden's actions, and his blithe attitude about delegating the authority of the office he was elected to fill is disturbing to say the least.
6 comments:
It seems to me that this issue constitutes yet another lie of the Biden Administration. That is, he said he signed, but he actually didn't.
Having just closed on a house last week, I experienced multiple E-Sign situations, until the actual closing where we went through the typical mound of contracts, agreements and acknowledgements which had to be wet signed. But as to the E-Signing, I had to consciously and intentionally do the signing. Now, my wife could be given access to my account and done that for me, but it's one person to whom I have granted that authority and as we're One Flesh, that's far more like my doing the actual signing than to grant her permission to sign absolutely anything without me knowing exactly what's being signed, as seems to be the case with Biden and his thousands of pardons.
I really don't see why the auto-pen should be used at all regardless of the importance of that being signed. If the number of documents is huge, that's just too bad.
By the way, on a side note, you asked me if I had closed comments on one of my threads. I have not....just in case you had more to say, or perhaps you were just wondering if no one else did, either. P.S. You don't need to post this comment. I just wanted to let you know.
It is clearly one more example of the Biden administration or Biden himself disseminating false information. That Biden himself seems to be insisting that he approved individual pardons verbally, while acknowledging that he passed the responsibility of signing them off to others, sounds more like revising history than anything else.
For some reason, known only to the minions of state governments, e signatures are good for everything in the process of buying a home, except signing the closing documents (sometimes even the color of ink is prescribed).
Yet, your point is valid. To e sign, you are taking a series of intentional/individual actions which is similar to the intent to wet sign. Technically, it's against something for spouses to e sign for each other, but I've had clients do so when one spouse didn't have access to email.
I'm not saying that it should be used by POTUS, simply pointing out that there are some things that are signed (National cat day proclamation) that aren't particularly important.
FWIW, we need to have some rules established that deal with this situation. The Biden situation could end up being a nightmare if people start to sue over whether or not something was signed or not. It seems pretty clear that only POYUS can sign things to make them official. It could be argued that even Biden operating the machine is not him actually signing the various things.
Just one more pile of shit left to us by Biden.
I was just curious. The fact that a pretty involved thread simply died after 354 comments seemed strange. I could totally see the value in closing comments as it had gotten pretty difficult to navigate. I guess it's telling when a commenter simply disappears after not being able to provide what's been asked.
Indeed. Given how often he claims he knows not what he can do to help us, one would think providing what's requested might do the trick.
You would think that providing what is requested would indeed be a good start. Simply doing himself, what he demands of others, would be good as well. I guess his shutting up because he can't or won't do when he's been asked is better than him constantly repeating the same old bullshit.
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