Miranda Devine: Jill Biden's ‘work husband' Anthony Bernal may have played a key role in covering up Joe's cognitive decline
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made that point crystal clear from the press room podium Thursday, saying the former first lady 'needs to answer' for 'lying to the American people' and 'shielding her husband away from the cameras.'
For the normally circumspect Leavitt, it was a damning indictment.
'I think, frankly, the former first lady should certainly speak up about what she saw in regards to her husband and when she saw and what she knew,' she told reporters at a White House briefing.
'Anybody looking again at the videos and photo evidence of Joe Biden with your own eyes and a little bit of common sense can see this was a clear cover-up, and Jill Biden was certainly complicit in that coverup.'
Some, like Leo Terrell, a senior counselor in the DOJ's civil rights office, went so far as to say Jill was guilty of 'elder abuse.'
Of course, Joe Biden's delusional ambition is most at fault.
He knew what he was doing when he ran for president in 2019 but needed teleprompters to recite a basic stump speech he used to know by heart. He knew what he was doing when he decided to run again in 2024, despite his health problems.
'Wizard of Oz-type'
What is becoming clear is that the social-climbing former first lady and the aide she calls her 'work husband,' Arizona-born former child actor Anthony Bernal, played a bigger role in this con job than previously has been acknowledged.
David Hogg, recently ousted as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, and Deterrian Jones, a former Biden White House staffer, point the finger at Bernal as the chief puppeteer in a new undercover video from Project Veritas released last week.
Bernal had 'an enormous amount of power,' said Hogg.
Jones described Jill's diminutive gay factotum as 'scary . . . like a Wizard of Oz-type figure. The general public wouldn't know what he looked like, but he wielded enormous power.'
According to Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's new book, 'Original Sin,' Jill was one of the most powerful first ladies in history, and that gave her Rasputin-like senior adviser outsized influence among the 'Politburo' that controlled her husband.
When Biden was hidden away during the 2020 campaign in his Delaware basement using the COVID pandemic as an excuse, Bernal was one of only two staffers allowed to move to Wilmington to tend to their daily needs.
When Biden was holed up at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach last year, wrestling with the decision to abandon his campaign after his disastrous debate performance, Bernal was one of only four aides allowed by his side.
Bernal, who boasted the title of 'special assistant to the president' and reportedly earned the maximum White House salary, began working for Jill during the 2008 presidential campaign when he was hired to help her transition into the role of second lady.
While he was obsequious with the Bidens, he was loathed and feared by other White House staffers: 'He would not be welcome at my funeral,' a longtime Biden aide told the authors. Another said Bernal was 'the worst person they had ever met.'
Bernal enforced a strict culture of loyalty, interrogating aides he felt didn't measure up, and using his power to cast out 'potential heretics.'
'Bullied colleagues'
He worked with Jill to keep score of 'who was with them and against them,' chose her wardrobe, orchestrated her multiple Vogue covers, and planned glamorous overseas trips they could take together on Air Force One.
This should come as no surprise to Post readers since White House correspondent Steven Nelson broke the story last March that Bernal 'bullied and verbally sexually harassed colleagues over more than a decade' but is considered 'untouchable' because Jill adores him.
Bernal repeatedly speculated about 'the penis size of colleagues,' according to Nelson's sources. 'They talk a big game about integrity, decency, and kindness but when you work for the Bidens, you experience anything but that,' said one former staffer.
The Bidens told us 'decency' was on the ballot. It was, but not in the way they meant.
As Joe faded and disappeared from view toward the end of his presidency, Jill's rival court took charge as she commandeered Air Force One and a big Secret Service contingent for a frenetic round of solo campaigning, always accompanied by the indispensable Bernal. Her priority over then-candidate Donald Trump for Secret Service resources at a dinner she attended in Pittsburgh on the day of his rally in Butler, Pa., was blamed in part for Trump being inadequately protected when he was shot during an attempted assassination.
Bernal was by Jill's side when she swanned into Hunter's gun trial in Wilmington last year to project presidential power to the jury, which nonetheless convicted her wayward 55-year-old stepson.
He joined Jill on Air Force One when she jetted back to France for 24 hours at taxpayer expense to join her husband on an official visit for D-Day commemorations in the middle of the trial, before they returned together to the courtroom.
If Jill is guilty of hiding the Bidens' many secrets, she had a willing accomplice in Bernal.
We may learn more about his role in coming weeks as House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) probes the cover-up of Joe's cognitive decline and whether the president was fit to authorize the use of an autopen for his signature on executive orders and pardons.
'Historic scandal'
Comer sent letters about what he calls the 'historic scandal,' demanding transcribed interviews from Bernal and four other former Biden aides, including Dr. Kevin O'Connor, Neera Tanden, Annie Tomasini, and Ashley Williams, all of whom have hired lawyers, he told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. O'Connor's interview is set for the end of June.
Comer also is considering subpoenas for Jill and Hunter.
'These executive orders were many meant to Trump proof this White House,' Comer told Bartiromo. 'If we can find information that would lead us to believe that Joe Biden had no knowledge of those executive orders being signed in his name, then I think that the Trump administration could get them thrown out in court, and then Trump would be able to execute his agenda a whole lot easier without all the Trump-proofing that happened with the auto pen at the end of the Biden administration.'
The American people do deserve to know who was running the White House the last four years.
But it may not be so easy to prove that Joe was out of it. The former president showed he still has fight in him last week when he showed up at a veterans' memorial event in Delaware and snarked at questions from reporters about his cognitive and physical health: 'You can see that I'm mentally incompetent and I can't walk,' he said, sarcastically.
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