"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."
""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."
"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 Justice Department uploaded pardons to its website showing identical copies of President Donald Trump's signature and later replaced them, citing a technical error. Forensic document experts confirmed several signatures initially posted were identical. The administration said Trump personally signed the Nov. 7 pardons and attributed the online duplication to technical and staffing issues, while saying the error does not affect the clemency validity. The signature questions arose amid a recent wave of pardons and follow a controversy over another pardon of crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao. Handwriting experts noted identical signatures are inconsistent with handwriting identification science.
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