How an Autopen Conspiracy Theory About Biden Went Viral

Mike Howell was looking at his phone in an airport lounge this month when he saw a letter from the attorney general of Missouri questioning whether President Joseph R.Biden Jr.

had the “mental capacity” to sign the pardons and executive orders he issued during his final months in office.Mr.Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project, a branch of the conservative Heritage Foundation, sensed an opportunity, he said in an interview.

For months, he had been comparing Mr.Biden’s signature on dozens of official documents and noting that many of them appeared identical.

Before boarding his flight, Mr.Howell made a conspiratorial post on X: “Whoever controlled the autopen controlled the presidency.”While critics of Mr.

Biden questioned his fitness for office, no evidence has emerged that he did not consent to any of the acts bearing his signature.Yet by the time Mr.Howell landed, his post had gone viral.

Within days, the notion that shadowy deep state operatives had been secretly running the country instead of Mr.Biden, using a mechanical contraption to achieve their diabolical aims, had erupted into a furor.An autopen is a machine that uses a real pen to copy a person’s actual signature.

Presidents and other politicians have used such devices for decades with little public interest.In the first two months of this year, the term was mentioned a total of 49 times on television, radio and podcasts in the United States, according to data from the media tracker Critical Mention.It was uttered 6,188 times on March 17 alone.Right-wing talk radio, podcasts and cable news shows have now devoted hundreds of segments to the arcana of wet signatures and autopen technology.

They are particularly focused on Mr.Biden’s signatures on his pardons of political allies like Senator Adam Schiff, the California Democrat, as well as his son Hunter Biden.

And they claim that the former president was mentally impaired and unaware of what documents he was being asked t...