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Not POTUS Note

Did Joe Biden's letter withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race require the presidential seal? No, that's not true: The letter was written by Biden in his capacity as then-candidate -- not by Biden as president. The seal is only used for official presidential correspondence.

The claim was implied in a post (archived here) on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, published July 21, 2024. The post included Biden's letter and read:

So is anyone familiar with Joe Biden's official signature? And shouldn't there be a Presidential seal on this letter? Where is it? Just asking interesting questions...that's what I do.

This is how the post looked on social media at the time of writing:

(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Jul 22 05:21:18 2024 UTC)

Contrary to what the post implies, there should not be a presidential seal on Biden's letter. That's because it was not written by Biden in his capacity as president. He wrote it as a then-candidate for the 2024 election.

Jordan Libowitz, vice president for communications for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonpartisan watchdog group, described Biden's letter as an open letter. In an email to Lead Stories, dated July 22, 2024, he wrote:

There's nothing official or unofficial about it, it's just a letter.

Addressing the post's further implication that the letter is somehow suspicious or not valid, Libowitz stressed that what matters are the forms filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and what Biden tells the Democratic Party. Libowitz wrote:

Official White House communication really doesn't have anything to do with this.

Biden's letter was posted to his campaign's X account; it was not posted to his official presidential account. Each account contains examples of earlier letters.

For example, Biden -- as candidate -- posted this letter (archived here) on July 8, 2024, addressed to fellow Democrats. Note that it does not have the presidential seal. By contrast, Biden -- as president -- posted this letter (archived here) on May 14, 2024, to mark the two-year anniversary of a shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that left 10 Black people dead. That letter has the official seal.

Lead Stories has previously debunked the false claim that the lack of the presidential seal means Biden is not president. You can read that story here.