Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Daniel Chaitin.
Joe Biden's White House physician, Kevin O'Connor, repeatedly declined to answer questions during a deposition before Congress on Wednesday as part of an investigation into the alleged
"cover-up" of the former president's mental state and whether he authorized the use of autopen signatures for major executive actions.
Republicans who lead the House Oversight Committee released video of the closed-door interview showing O'Connor declaring his refusal to cooperate when pressed on whether he was ever told to lie about Biden's health and if he ever believed Biden was unfit to executive his duties as president.
"On the advice of counsel," O'Connor said each time,
"I must respectfully decline to answer based upon the physician-patient privilege and in reliance on my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. I am not a lawyer and I must follow my lawyer's advice in this matter."
The video showed O'Connor, who had been subpoenaed to appear for the deposition, did state his name and said
"yes" as he swore to be truthful in his testimony. Otherwise he stuck to saying he would not be answering questions, including those related to whether he understood instructions. O'Connor's attorney stressed that his client's responses would not change.
While the GOP majority tried - and failed - to get O'Connor to say whether his non-answers were meant to avoid self-incrimination, the Democrat minority pointed out for the record that O'Connor's attorneys had explained to Republicans that responses violating doctor-patient confidentiality might place the witness in breach of his legal and ethical obligations.
O'Connor's attorney read a statement telling House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and the other members of the panel the witness would not violate his oath of confidentiality to his patients, including Biden, and insisted that a
"pending" Department of Justice criminal investigation left O'Connor
"no choice" but to assert his Fifth Amendment rights. It was also noted that O'Connor's assertion of his Fifth Amendment privilege did not imply that he committed any crimes.
The video was a little less than 21 minutes in total, but there were breaks in the footage for off-the-record portions of the deposition.
After the interview, a GOP House Oversight aide rejected the claim of doctor-patient confidentiality.
"Dr. O'Connor would not answer any questions other than his name. Doctor-patient objection would have meant he would have stayed and answered questions that didn't implicate such privilege," the aide said.
"Instead, he took the Fifth to all and any potential questions."
Republicans interpreted O'Connor's conduct as evidence of there being an effort to conceal evidence of Biden's diminishing health while he was in office.
"It's now clear there was a conspiracy to cover up President Biden's cognitive decline after Dr. Kevin O'Connor, Biden's physician and family business associate, refused to answer any questions and chose to hide behind the Fifth Amendment," Comer said in a post on X.
"The American people demand transparency but Dr. O'Connor would rather conceal the truth," Comer added.
"Dr. O'Connor took the Fifth when asked if he was told to lie about President Biden's health and whether he was fit to be President of the United States. Congress must assess legislative solutions to prevent such a cover-up from happening again. We will continue to interview more Biden White House aides to get the answers Americans deserve."
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, took the opportunity to swipe at GOP colleagues over the
"One Big, Beautiful Bill" that recently passed through Congress.
"The only person's health that Republicans care about is Joe Biden's - even as 17 million Americans lose access to health care thanks to their budget betrayal," Garcia said on X.
O'Connor's deposition took place after President Donald Trump waived his executive privilege, which also happened for former White House Staff Secretary and Director of the Domestic Policy Council Neera Tanden, who testified for several hours last month and denied there was an effort to cover up Biden's condition. Other former Biden aides are expected to testify before the House Oversight Committee in the coming weeks.
Biden, now 82, abandoned his 2024 re-election bid following a faltering presidential debate against Trump amid pressure from allies. A book by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on Biden's
"decline" and the
"cover-up," alongside the former president's recent
"aggressive" prostate cancer diagnosis and the release of audio from special counsel Robert Hur's interview with him, intensified scrutiny. However, the former president has pushed back on the notion that he did not dictate his executive actions.
"Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false," Biden said in a statement.
"This is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans."
Trump has ordered a separate investigation into whether aides improperly used an autopen for executive actions in an effort to conceal Biden's health issues, suggesting there could be
"implications" for the legality and validity of the presidential acts in question. Senate Republicans are also looking into Biden's mental fitness.
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Remember, if there had been no absentee ballots numbering over 43 million floating around in autumn of 2020, there is a perfect chance that America's First Idiot President, but America's Second Non Patriot President, would never have been elected in the first place.