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.

Within hours of the online speculation, the administration replaced copies of the pardons with new ones that did not feature identical signatures. It insisted Trump, who mercilessly mocked his predecessor’s use of an autopen, had originally signed all the Nov. 7 pardons himself and blamed “technical” and staffing issues for the error, which has no bearing on the validity of the clemency actions.

The questions about Trump’s signature come amid a new flurry of clemency and weeks after the president claimed to not even know Changpeng Zhao, a crypto billionaire he pardoned last month. He said in an interview with 60 Minutes that the case had been “a Biden witch hunt.”

“A basic axiom of handwriting identification science is that no two signatures are going to bear the exact same design features in every aspect,” said Tom Vastrick, a Florida-based handwriting expert who is president of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners.

“It’s very straightforward,” said Vastrick, who compared the apparently identical images, now only visible through the online Internet Archive, with the replacements at AP’s request.

Chad Gilmartin, a Justice Department spokesperson, said the “website was updated after a technical error where one of the signatures President Trump personally signed was mistakenly uploaded multiple times due to staffing issues caused by the Democrat shutdown.”

“There is no story here other than the fact that President Trump signed seven pardons by hand and DOJ posted those same seven pardons with seven unique signatures to our website,” Gilmartin said in a statement to AP, referring to the latest wave of clemency Trump has granted in recent weeks.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson wrote in an email that Trump “signed each one of these pardons by hand as he does with all pardons.”

“The media should spend their time investigating Joe Biden’s countless auto penned pardons, not covering a non-story,” she wrote.

Trump has been an outspoken critic of Biden’s use of the autopen to conduct executive business, going as far as to display a picture of one such device in place of a portrait of his predecessor in a new “Presidential Walk of Fame” he created along the West Wing colonnade. His Republican allies in Congress last month released a blistering critique of Biden’s alleged “diminished faculties” and mental state during his term that ranked the Democrat’s use of the autopen among “the greatest scandals in U.S. history.”

The Republicans said their findings cast doubt on all of Biden’s actions in office and sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi urging a full investigation.

“Senior White House officials did not know who operated the autopen and its use was not sufficiently controlled or documented to prevent abuse,” the House Oversight Committee found. “The Committee deems void all executive actions signed by the autopen without proper, corresponding, contemporaneous, written approval traceable to the president’s own consent.”

On Friday, Republicans who control the committee released a statement that characterized Trump’s potential use of an electronic signature as legitimate, which it distinguished from Biden’s.

But Rep. Dave Min, a California Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, seized on the apparent similarities in the initial version of the pardons and called for an investigation of the matter, deploying the Republican arguments against Biden in a statement to AP that “we need to better understand who is actually in charge of the White House, because Trump seems to be slipping.”

Regardless, legal experts say the use of an autopen has no bearing on the validity of the pardons.

“The key to pardon validity is whether the president intended to grant the pardon,” said Frank Bowman, a legal historian and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law who is writing a book on pardons. “Any re-signing is an obvious, and rather silly, effort to avoid comparison to Biden.”

Much of Trump’s mercy has gone to political allies, campaign donors and fraudsters who claimed they were victims of a “weaponized” Justice Department. Trump has largely cast aside a process that historically has been overseen by nonpolitical personnel at the Justice Department.

Casada, a disgraced former Republican speaker of the Tennessee House, was sentenced in September to three years in prison. He was convicted of working with a former legislative aide to win taxpayer-funded mail business from state lawmakers who previously drove Casada from office amid a sexting scandal.

Strawberry was convicted in the 1990s of tax evasion and drug charges. Trump cited the 1983 National League Rookie of the Year’s post-career embrace of his Christian faith and longtime sobriety when pardoning him.

McMahon, a former New York City police sergeant, was sentenced this spring to 18 months in prison for his role in what a federal judge called “a campaign of transnational repression.” He was convicted of acting as a foreign agent for China after he tried to scare an ex-official into going back to his homeland.

McMahon’s defense attorney, Lawrence Lustberg, said he was not aware the pardon documents had been replaced until he was contacted Friday by an AP reporter.

“It is and has always been our understanding that President Trump granted Mr. McMahon his pardon,” Lustberg wrote in an email.

___

Mustian reported from Natchitoches, Louisiana. AP reporter Eric Tucker contributed reporting from Washington.

The dismissal of Greene — once the epitome of “Make America Great Again,” sporting the signature red cap for President Joe Biden’s 2024 State of the Union address and acting as a go-between for Trump and other Capitol Hill Republicans — appeared to be the final break in a dispute simmering for months, as Greene has seemingly moderated her political profile. The three-term U.S. House member has increasingly dissented from Republican leaders, attacking them during the just-ended federal government shutdown and saying they need a plan to help people who are losing subsidies to afford health insurance policies.

Accusing the Georgia Republican of going “Far Left,” Trump wrote that all he had witnessed from Greene in recent months is “COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” adding, of Greene’s purported irritation that he doesn’t return her phone calls, “I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day.”

In a response on X, Greene wrote Friday that Trump had “attacked me and lied about me.” She added a screenshot of a text she said she had sent the president earlier in the day about releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, which she said “is what sent him over the edge.”

Greene called it “astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level,” referencing next week’s U.S. House vote over releasing the Epstein files.

Writing that she had supported Trump “with too much of my precious time, too much of my own money, and fought harder for him even when almost all other Republicans turned their back and denounced him,” Greene added, “I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump.”

Trump’s post seemingly tied a bow of finality to fissures that widened following this month’s off-cycle elections, in which voters in the New Jersey and Virginia governor races flocked to Democrats in large part over concerns about the cost of living.

Last week, Greene told NBC News that “watching the foreign leaders come to the White House through a revolving door is not helping Americans,” saying that Trump needs to focus on high prices at home rather than his recent emphasis on foreign affairs. Trump responded by saying that Greene had “lost her way.”

Asked about Greene’s comments earlier Friday as he flew from Washington to Florida, Trump reiterated that he felt “something happened to her over the last month or two,” saying that, if he hadn’t gone to China to meet leader Xi Jinping, there would have been negative ramifications for jobs in Georgia and elsewhere because China would have kept its curbs on magnet exports.

Saying that people have been calling him, wanting to challenge Greene, Trump added, “She’s lost a wonderful conservative reputation.”

Greene’s discontent dates back at least to May, when she announced she wouldn’t run for the Senate against Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff, while attacking GOP donors and consultants who feared she couldn’t win. In June, she publicly sided with Tucker Carlson after Trump called the commentator “kooky” in a schism that emerged between MAGA and national security hardliners over possible U.S. efforts at regime change in Iran.

That only intensified in July, when Greene said she wouldn’t run for governor. Then, she attacked a political “good ole boy” system, alleging it was endangering Republican control of the state. Greene embarked on a charm offensive in recent weeks, with interviews and appearances in media aimed at people who aren’t hardcore Trump supporters. Asked on comedian Tim Dillon’s podcast if she wanted to run for president in 2028, Greene said in October, “I hate politics so much” and just wanted “to fix problems” — but didn’t give a definitive answer.

That climaxed with an appearance on Bill Maher’s HBO show “Real Time,” followed days later by a Nov. 4 appearance on ABC’s “The View.” Some observers began pronouncing Greene as reasonable as she trashed Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana for not calling Republicans back to Washington and coming up with a health care plan.

“I feel like I’m sitting next to a completely different Marjorie Taylor Greene,” said “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin.

“Maybe you should become a Democrat, Marjorie,” said co-host Joy Behar.

“I’m not a Democrat,” Greene replied. “I think both parties have failed.”

___

Jeff Amy contributed reporting from Atlanta.

Her effort paid off when she ousted a 36-year Republican from his state House seat. She was one of 13 Virginia Democrats to flip competitive House seats and contribute to big election wins in her state and New Jersey, the only ones with governor’s races this year.

“We would greet them at the point of purchase,” Cole said. “That’s when it hurts most.”

The cost of living also may have led voters to signal that this is President Donald Trump’s economy now. Some prices have stabilized or even declined, and costs tend to be higher in New Jersey than Virginia. But economic concerns, which helped Trump return to power in 2024, appeared to weigh Republicans down in the two contests for governor in the first major election after they took control of the White House and Congress, according to the AP Voter Poll.

Democrats Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, who won those races in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively, campaigned hard on economic issues and led a sweep for their party in both states.

The swings were especially dramatic in suburban and exurban areas like Spotsylvania and Morris County, New Jersey. Morris County is part of a traditionally Republican state legislative district where liberal Democrat Marisa Sweeney and one of two incumbent Republicans are so close in the vote count that The Associated Press considers the race, which will have two winners, too close to call.

“You go into the grocery store, you see what things cost, and it’s just not working,” Sweeney said.

Paying the bills

Over the past decade, places like Morris and Spotsylvania counties have become increasingly competitive — communities just beyond major metro areas where midterms are often won or lost. Morris County is about 30 miles west of New York City; Spotsylvania County is just south of Fredericksburg. Each is about two-thirds white, slightly wealthier than the national average, and at or above it in the share of residents with bachelor’s degrees.

Heading into 2025, both looked like they would be close. Cole’s district includes part of the Republican-leaning county, which Trump carried in 2020 and 2024, and GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin won it by more than 20 percentage points in between.

Still, Cole remained persuaded that she could flip her district, which includes part of Spotsylvania and Caroline counties.

“Early on in my campaign, when I brought in my staff, one of the main messages I talked to them about was that we need to stop saying this district is red, and that it leans red,” Cole said, adding: “We had to give some encouragement that this is possible to the people who aren’t red.”

Cole, who was elected to the Spotsylvania County School Board in 2021, developed a playbook focused on the cost of living and education. Two weeks before the Nov. 4 election, she spoke at a town hall in Fredericksburg about tackling high energy bills from electric utilities.

“You know you have to have heat and air, and a utility bill that has to get paid,” she said. “So then something else is a sacrifice. The quality of food that you’re able to buy for your kids is a sacrifice.”

As she greeted voters in November after the election, most people were tired of talking politics. But one voter, Kaitlyn Sapp, seemed interested in learning what Democrats would do for her.

“I did not vote this year,” Sapp said. “I have not been very political. But recently, I have been trying to learn more.”

Cole smiled, not wasting a second before rattling off the issues her party aimed to tackle next year: health care costs, public education, utility bills and so on.

Prices to pay

Morris County also swung dramatically to Democrats.

It was one of just four New Jersey counties to back both Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race and Republican Jack Ciattarelli in the governor’s race the next year. Biden won Morris County by 4 percentage points, and Ciattarelli carried it by more than 11 percentage points. That 15.5 percentage point swing was the sixth-largest among the state’s 21 counties. By 2024, Trump narrowly flipped Morris County, winning it by just under 3 percentage points.

This time around, Sherrill edged Ciattarelli there.

Sherrill’s victory is not all that surprising, and she is no stranger to the county. The governor-elect represented it while serving in Congress, and had a track record of working with state Republicans in the county.

“She has a lot of crossover appeal with Republican voters,” said Darcy Draeger, chairwoman of the Morris County Democrats.

Voters seemed to pay attention to how the president’s policies were affecting them, said Sweeney, whose district includes part of the county.

“People are watching the news and they’re looking to see what goes on in Trump’s administration, and they are seeing how it affects people locally, and with the whole government shutdown and people losing their SNAP benefits,” Sweeney said. “We’re talking about people within our own communities.”

It’s an outlook shared by some conservatives. The all-encompassing effect of Trump’s second administration and his clash with congressional Democrats cost the party in New Jersey, Republicans said.

“We need to make sure that our constituents understand that we are here to serve and that we’re listening to their voices,” said Republican state Sen. Anthony Bucco of Morris County. “I think the message was drowned out a little bit by Washington.”

Passaic, a northern New Jersey county not far from New York, is another area that shows a shift back to Democrats. The county, which has heavily Latino areas, went for Trump in 2024, the first time it went for a Republican in decades. This year, it swung back to Democrats by double digits.

John Currie, the longtime Democratic chairman in Passaic, chalked up the swing back to his party there to “hard work” by those running, along with a message about lowering costs. And by not talking about costs enough, Currie said Republicans paid the ultimate price.

“Affordability – it’s that simple.”