The House GOP’s much ballyhooed investigation into former President Joe Biden’s alleged cognitive decline has largely ended with a thud.
In a new report released Tuesday morning, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Republican majority claims to have found evidence that senior Biden White House aides “exercised the authority of the former president” and concealed signs of Biden’s mental deterioration. In fact, the probe concluded with the need for answers to more questions than any appearance of a smoking gun.
Between June and September, House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) convened depositions or transcribed interviews with more than a dozen former Biden aides, including chiefs of staff Ron Klain and Jeff Zients. The Trump administration waived executive privilege for witnesses as part of an effort to clear the way for their cooperation. Even so, several of them invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
The House Oversight GOP is citing, in part, this barrier to getting information from the witnesses as proof of an internal cover-up around Biden’s health. The committee chair is now asking President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice to look into each and every one of Biden’s executive actions, with Comer arguing the state of Biden’s mental faculties could not be accounted for at the time of signing.
“[B]arring documentation establishing a record of President Biden’s decision-making, the Committee deems void President Biden’s executive actions that were signed using the autopen,” Comer wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi. “[A]nd the Committee determines that action by the Department of Justice is warranted to address the legal consequences of that determination.”
The request could prolong the administration’s crusade against some of Trump’s biggest political rivals, though the efforts to overturn Biden’s executive actions could be blocked by the courts. Presidents also have for years relied on the autopen to sign materials as a standard practice, and Biden has maintained that his decisions were his own.
The Republican report recommends that the District of Columbia Board of Medicine investigate whether Biden’s White House doctor, Kevin O’Connor, failed his duties as a physician by misleading Americans as to the president’s health. As evidence, the report pointed to O’Connor’s refusal to cooperate with the committee’s probe: O’Connor cited his Fifth Amendment rights and physician-patient privilege in declining to answer questions. Republicans also cited O’Connor’s decision to forgo a cognitive exam for the president.
Finally, Comer is asking DOJ to investigate O’Connor as well as two senior aides — Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini — who also cited the Fifth Amendment to ascertain whether their conduct in the former administration was criminal.
“Dr. O’Connor’s lack of transparency demonstrated while serving as the active White House physician and not testifying before this Committee to answer relevant, pointed questions about President Biden’s ability to carry out the duties of the presidency is untenable for a licensed medical professional tasked to diagnose, heal, and protect the official in the highest elected office,” Comer wrote in a letter to the D.C. Board of Medicine’s chair.
The letter added that, if necessary, O’Connor should be sanctioned by the Board of Medicine.
Comer’s leadership of the probe into Biden’s mental decline comes at a fortuitous time in his own political career: The Kentucky Republican is weighing a bid for the state’s governorship in 2027 — a race where Trump’s endorsement could carry considerable weight.
He previously co-led an impeachment inquiry into Biden that culminated in a hundreds-of-pages long report that concluded his family “engaged in a global influence peddling racket from which they made millions of dollars.” And although the report argued Biden’s actions constituted “impeachable conduct,” House GOP leadership never set up an impeachment vote on the House floor.
Biden’s weak performance in the June 2024 presidential debate set off a cascade of questions over his mental acuity, ultimately forcing him out of the presidential race. But even after he dropped his reelection campaign and largely stepped aside from public life, Republicans continued to press the party’s leadership for covering up Biden’s potential health failings.
Comer took on the charge of putting together a review of the former president’s use of the autopen. Trump, separately, launched the administration’s own probe into whether Biden’s former White House aides contributed to a cover-up of his decline and authorized illicit use of the autopen.
“With the exception of the RIGGED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020, THE AUTOPEN IS THE BIGGEST POLITICAL SCANDAL IN AMERICAN HISTORY!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social this summer.
The Justice Department and representatives for Biden, O’Connor, Bernal and Tomasini did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Among the highlights of Comer’s report is that Zients told the committee that Biden had been informed of his suggestion that he should consider dropping out of the presidential race and Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, thought Biden should drop out after the June debate.
Additionally, Zients disclosed that Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, took part in some White House discussions around pardons. Biden would go on to pardon the younger Biden, who was facing his own legal struggles.
