this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
607 points (99.7% liked)

News

33152 readers
4604 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The Justice Department posted pardons online bearing identical copies of Donald Trump’s signature before quietly correcting them this week after what the agency called a “technical error.”

The replacements came after online commenters seized on striking similarities in the president’s signature across a series of pardons dated Nov. 7, including those granted to former New York Mets player Darryl Strawberry, former Tennessee House speaker Glen Casada and former New York police sergeant Michael McMahon.

In fact, the signatures on several pardons initially uploaded to the Justice Department’s website were identical, two forensic document experts confirmed to The Associated Press.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] snooggums@piefed.world 267 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Pretty sure this is worse than the autopen thing they tried to turn into a scandal.

[–] ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml 141 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yeah. Autopens have been used for like... 150 years or something? And they involve the president actually authorizing the signature, whereas Stephen Miller or some aide or somebody is just copying and pasting this shit on random documents

Edit: over 200 years. https://www.shapell.org/behind-the-scenes/the-robot-pen/

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 85 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The first president to use the autopen extensively was Thomas Jefferson. ... Since Jefferson, various US presidents have made use of the autopen; some were guarded about it while others were more open about its use. Whereas once the official White House position was to deny the existence or usage of the autopen, today its existence is more of an open secret.

Harry Truman was rumored to make use of the device; Gerald Ford was open about his utilization of the autopen, but it was Lyndon B. Johnson who blew the doors off the entire affair by allowing the device to be photographed in the White House, appearing on the cover of The National Enquirer with the article “The Robot That Sits in for the President.”

John F. Kennedy was so dependent on the autopen, that he became the subject of a book entitled The Robot That Helped to Make a President.

But when Biden uses it, it's a scandal, and when Trump duplicates his signatures it's perfectly fine. Good old Republican hypocrisy.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

They know all of this. They harped on the Biden autopen thing to normalize exactly what we are reading about right now.

"Biden got away with it, so we can do it too."

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 14 points 22 hours ago

Rules are different for dictators.

[–] hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de 67 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Every single single accusation, regardless how outlandish it may seem, is an admission. At this point I would not be surprised if they had pedo space lasers igniting Californian forests.

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 38 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Claims of election fraud to numb tolerance public to hearing about that.

Pedophile pizza places was Epstein Island.

Claims of Dems taking away guns, bot Trump is working on that.

Claiming woke stuff silences people so their taking over national media seems normal.

Autopen was to desensitize to staff pardoning people using Trump's name.

There's tons more, but yeah if they accuse Dems of doing something then it is something the fascists are planning to do.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 6 hours ago

It's amazing that it still keeps working.

[–] krashmo@lemmy.world 46 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean, we've already accepted the idea that he's handing out pardons to people who commit crimes on his behalf and outright selling pardons to others without much fuss. At that point who cares how he's signing the documents?

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 84 points 1 day ago (2 children)

He's literally admitted he has no clue who Changpeng Zhao, someone he pardoned, even is. If you can't name the pardoned crime nor the person, is he of sound mind to be entrusted with that power?

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 44 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It does make you wonder whether Trump even signs these orders, or whether Stephen Miller just prints Trump's signature on them in his crypt of Nazi evil.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago

In any sane time, that admission alone would spark multiple Congressional inquiries, and maybe even an impeachment trial. But now, we just add it to the pile of impeachable things that this Congress lets slide because their guy is doing it.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Honestly I don't see why either would matter. If someone made him an e-signature/stamp and he said yeah I want this this and that, I couldn't care less if assistants put the e-signature in for them. Now if someone used it without consent it would be illegal.

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 31 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The whole autopen was accusing Biden of not knowing who he was pardoning because of the use of autopen.

This is clearly people being pardoned with no indication of Trump being aware of it happening and Trump has already admitted to pardoning people without knowing who they are.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 4 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Someone needs to ask him if his administration is doing things without his knowledge or direction.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 6 hours ago

He quite literally said that he had no idea who the Binance guy that he pardoned is.

[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It matters because he's tried to overturn pardons from Biden for the exact same thing. It's more of the "every accusation is a confession" and makes people suspect he doesn't know what is going on

[–] TheFogan@programming.dev 5 points 1 day ago

Yeah to me I don't think the process really should matter that much, dude signs, has a designated signer pushes a button, what really matters is he knew what was going on and gave some form of confirmation.

To me, hypothetically president X, asks an intern to forge his signature, but says "he just authorized X", that should be more legit than if a paper goes in front of president Y, he signs it without reading it, he's asked about it 30 minutes later and has no clue what it is.