pardons

WASHINGTON — President Trump pardoned Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife in a federal bribery and conspiracy case on Wednesday, citing what he called a “weaponized” justice system.

Trump, who has argued that his own legal troubles were a partisan witch hunt, said on social media without presenting evidence that Cuellar and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, were prosecuted because the congressman had been critical of President Biden’s immigration policies.

Trump, a Republican, said in a social media post that Cuellar “bravely spoke out against Open Borders” and accused Biden, a Democrat, of going after the congressman and his wife “simply for speaking the TRUTH.”

Federal authorities had charged Cuellar and his wife with accepting thousands of dollars in exchange for the congressman advancing the interests of an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico. Cuellar is accused of agreeing to influence legislation favorable to Azerbaijan and deliver a pro-Azerbaijan speech on the floor of the U.S. House.

Cuellar has said he and his wife are innocent. The couple’s trial had been set to begin next April.

“Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight,” Trump wrote in his social media post announcing the pardon. “Your nightmare is finally over!”

The Cuellars’ attorneys and a spokesperson for Biden did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Cuellar still faces an Ethics Committee investigation in the House. It began in May 2024 shortly after his indictment and was reauthorized in July. The committee said it was in contact with the Justice Department about mitigating the risks associated with dual investigations while still meeting its obligations to safeguard the integrity of the House.

Cuellar, who has served in Congress for more than 20 years, is a moderate Democrat who represents an area on the Texas-Mexico border and has a history of breaking with his party when it comes to immigration and firearms.

He was among the most vocal critics of the Biden administration’s response to a record number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. He also is one of the last Democrats in Congress who opposes abortion rights.

Cuellar is not the only Democrat Trump has pardoned this year. In February, he pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, five years after he had commuted his sentence in a political corruption case.

Like in Cuellar’s case, Trump suggested that New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, faced federal corruption charges because he made comments critical of Biden’s immigration policies.

Trump did not pardon Adams, but after Trump took office, the Justice Department moved to drop the case against the mayor, who had begun working with the Republican administration on immigration issues.

A top Justice Department official, who was also Trump’s defense lawyer in several of his cases, stepped in to seek dismissal in the case.

Price writes for the Associated Press.

United States President Donald Trump says he has voided all pardons and commutations that were signed by his predecessor, Joe Biden, with an autopen.

“Any and all Documents, Proclamations, Executive Orders, Memorandums, or Contracts, signed by Order of the now infamous and unauthorised ‘AUTOPEN,’ within the Administration of Joseph R. Biden Jr., are hereby null, void, and of no further force or effect,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Tuesday evening.

“Anyone receiving ‘Pardons,’ ‘Commutations,’ or any other Legal Document so signed, please be advised that said Document has been fully and completely terminated and is of no Legal effect,” he said.

However, legal experts say the US president’s move is not enforceable.

So, what documents did Biden sign with the autopen, who will be affected, and is Trump’s move legal?

What documents did Biden sign with his autopen?

Trump has repeatedly claimed that Biden’s use of the autopen, a mechanical device that allows signatures without a person using their hand, was a reflection of the former president’s physical and mental frailty.

Biden issued a record 4,245 acts of clemency during his four years in office, more than any other US president since the start of the 20th century, according to the non-partisan Pew Research Center.

Most of these acts were commutations or a reduction in sentence. Biden only issued 80 individual pardons, the second-lowest number over the same period, but he was better known for issuing “pardons by proclamation”, which impacted entire classes of people.

These included pardons by proclamation for former military service members convicted of violating a ban on gay sex, which has since been repealed, and people convicted of certain federal marijuana offences, according to the Pew Research Center.

But it is unclear how many, and which, of the pardons and commutations ordered by Biden were signed using an autopen.

Is Trump’s move legal?

Bernadette Miller, a US and United Kingdom constitutional law expert at Stanford University, told Al Jazeera that Trump does not have the power to reverse pardons or commutations.

“This declaration has no legal effect. Any laws or pardons that Biden signed by autopen remain valid. The only exception would be an executive order that has effect only until rescinded by the same or another president,” she told Al Jazeera by email.

“Those orders could be undone by Trump, so presumably, this statement would undo any orders of that kind. But pardons and laws remain valid.”

PolitiFact, a fact-checking website based at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, separately found that there is “no constitutional mechanism for overturning pardons, and an 1869 judicial ruling found that once delivered, a pardon is final”.

The US Constitution also does not specify whether a pardon must be signed by hand, PolitiFact said on its website.

Who might be affected by Trump’s move?

Trump has previously insisted that a series of “preemptive” pardons that Biden issued to US legislators who investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol were signed by autopen.

A mob of Trump supporters, seeking to prevent Biden’s certification as president by Congress, had attacked the Capitol, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump and his allies have repeatedly failed to demonstrate mass fraud in the election.

The US president and his allies view Republicans who chose to investigate Trump, such as former members of Congress Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, as traitors to their movement.

In March, Trump said on Truth Social that the pardons for these legislators were “VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.”

Was Biden the first to use an autopen?

Biden was not the only US president to rely on an autopen, according to PolitiFact.

Similar devices have been used throughout most of US history, though as technology has advanced, so has the nature of autopens.

Thomas Jefferson, the third US president, used what was known as a polygraph: A device consisting of two pens rigged in a way that the second could copy the action of the first.

In the early 1960s, John F Kennedy used a more modern version of the autopen. More recently, Barack Obama used autopens on some occasions.

PolitiFact also found two legal memos from 1929 and 2005 stating that the US president does not have to sign documents by hand.

Dec. 2 (UPI) — U.S. prison officials released former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández after U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned him, Hernández’s wife revealed Tuesday.

Trump announced his plans to pardon Juan Orlando Hernández in a Truth Social post Friday. A U.S. court convicted Hernández in 2024 of trafficking drugs to the United States and sentenced him to 45 years in prison and an $8 million fine.

Trump said Juan Orlando Hernández had been “treated very harshly and unfairly.”

Citing prison records, the BBC reported Hernández was released from the high-security USP Hazelton prison in West Virginia.

Ana García de Hernández, the former president’s wife, announced his release on social media Tuesday, thanking Trump for his freedom. Renato Stabile, Juan Orlando Hernández’s attorney, also offered his thanks.

“On behalf of President Hernández and his family, I would like to thank President Trump for correcting this injustice,” Stabile said, according to CNN.

“President Hernández is glad this ordeal is over and is looking forward to regaining his life after almost four years in prison.”

Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress denounced Trump’s plan to pardon Juan Orlando Hernández given his crackdown on drug trafficking linked to immigration.

White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt blamed Juan Orlando Hernández’s on the Biden administration.

“This was a clear Biden over-prosecution. He was the president of this country. He was in the opposition party,” she said. “He was opposed to the values of the previous ad.”