GOP-led House committee seeks testimony from Biden's doctor, aides
Then-President Joe Biden walks with White House Dr. Kevin O'Connor at the White House in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 2023. A GOP-led commission on Thursday demanded O'Connor to sit for a transcribed interview. File Photo by Chris Kleponis/ UPI | License Photo
May 23 (UPI) -- The GOP-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has called on President Joe Biden's physician and former White House aides to sit for interviews as it investigates an alleged cover-up of the former president's health.
"The cover-up of President Biden's obvious mental decline is a historic scandal," Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement Thursday. "The American people deserve to know why this decline began, how far it progressed and who was making critical decisions on his behalf."
Concerns about Biden's age and mental capacity plagued his re-election campaign and the perception of his fitness for office, following a poor showing at a debate against Donald Trump in June, led to his eventual withdrawal from the race.
In the past week, there has been renewed interest in Biden's health after he announced he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and the publication of books that allege his mental capacity while in office had diminished since his election.
Allegations and conspiracy theories have been made by President Donald Trump and Republicans that there was a Democratic coverup of Biden's decline while in office and that someone else other than the 46th president was making decisions during his term in office.
Comer, who led a failed multiyear impeachment investigation into Biden and his family during the Biden administration, sent letters on Thursday to Dr. Kevin O'Connor, Biden's physician and longtime family friend, and four of his close aides, demanding they sit for transcribed interviews.
The four aides to receive letters from Comer are: Neera Tanden, former director of the Domestic Policy Council, Anthony Bernal; former assistant to the president and senior adviser to former first lady Jill Biden; Annie Tomasini, former assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff; and Ashley Williams, former special assistant to the president and deputy director of Oval Office operations.
In the letter to O'Connor, Comer wrote that the committee is "investigating the accuracy, transparency and credibility of your medical assessments" of Biden during his presidency, citing his February 2024 report that described then-president as "a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the president."
"Further, the Committee remains interested in whether your financial relationship with the Biden family affected your assessment of former President Biden's physical and mental fitness to fulfill his duties as president. Given your connections with the Biden family, the Committee seeks to understand if you contributed to an effort to hide former President Biden's fitness to serve from the American people."
Biden announced his prostate cancer diagnosis on Sunday.
Trump -- who has long attacked Biden over his border policies, often describing them as "Biden's open borders" -- did an about-face following his former political opponent's cancer announcement and shifted blame to those in Biden's inner circle whom he now accuses of being behind the alleged cover-up.
"Joe Biden was not for Open Borders, he never talked about Open Borders ... it wasn't his idea to Open the Border, and almost destroy our Country ... It was the people that knew he was cognitively impaired and that took over the Autopen," Trump said on his Truth Social media platform.
"This is TREASON at the Highest Level!"
Comer said he wants responses to his letters by May 29 and is seeking to schedule interviews between June 2 and 25.
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