The new White House exhibition features an autopen among portraits of former US leaders
US President Donald Trump unveiled the ‘Presidential Walk of Fame’ at the White House on Wednesday, featuring portraits of all his predecessors – except Joe Biden, who is instead represented by the image of an autopen.
The portraits, displayed in gold frames along the West Wing Colonnade, begin with George Washington and extend to Trump himself, before culminating in a photograph of the pen device used to sign Biden-era documents.
Trump has repeatedly criticized his predecessor’s use of the autopen, a mechanical device that reproduces a person’s signature. In June, he ordered a Justice Department probe into whether Biden’s aides effectively exercised presidential authority while concealing the Democrat’s alleged cognitive decline.
Emails from Biden’s White House reportedly revealed internal concerns – including at the Justice Department – over whether the former president had personally reviewed certain clemency orders.
“I guess the only one he signed, or one of the few he signed, was the pardon for his son,” Trump told reporters earlier this month, insisting that the autopen had been “illegally used.”
Biden has repeatedly rejected the claims, maintaining that all decisions were his own and that autopen use was fully authorized. Under US law, documents signed with the device carry the same legal weight as handwritten signatures if approved by the president.
The Walk of Fame is part of broader White House renovations under Trump, including gold gilding in the Oval Office, a marble patio in the Rose Garden modeled after his Florida estate, a new ballroom under construction, and the installation of two 27-meter flagpoles on the White House lawn, which Trump has described as “the best poles anywhere in the country or in the world.”
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