House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) requested interviews with a series of top aides in former President Biden’s inner circle as part of his investigation into the president’s mental state.
Comer sent letters Friday — saying information was needed “as part of our aggressive investigation into the cover-up of [Biden’s] cognitive decline” — to former Biden officials press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, White House counsel office spokesperson Ian Sams, senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates, and chief of staff Jeff Zients.
“The scope of your responsibilities—both official and otherwise—and personal interactions within the Oval Office cannot go without investigation, given the mounting evidence that President Biden was incapacitated for much, if not all, of his single term,” Comer wrote in letters to both Sams and Bates.
“If White House staff carried out a strategy lasting months or even years to hide the chief executive’s condition—or to perform his duties—Congress may need to consider a legislative response.”
In the letter sent to the former top White House aides, Comer wrote that he seeks to investigate whether some executive decisions were made without Biden’s consent. President Trump has consistently publicly claimed, without citing evidence, that Biden used an autopen to sign major documents like executive orders.
The individual letters state that Jean-Pierre and Bates were the most prominent figures defending Biden’s mental acuity.
Jean-Pierre was Biden’s second press secretary, taking over for Jen Psaki in May 2022 and staying until the end of his term. She was the most public-facing member of the White House, fielding questions about Biden’s mental fitness, especially in the wake of his disastrous debate performance last year and pressure for him to drop out of the 2024 race.
The former press secretary said in early June that she was leaving the Democratic Party and switched her political affiliation to independent. She plans to write a book about Biden’s decision to abandon his bid for a second term, a book that will detail her time in what she described as a “broken” White House.
Bates worked for Biden throughout his four years in office and was a leading spokesperson pushing back on reporting suggesting that the former president’s health had declined, including in December 2024 when The Wall Street Journal published an article about how his aides managed his growing limitations.
Sams was the lead spokesperson responding to Comer’s calls to impeach Biden in 2023 and became the spokesperson for former Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign once the former president dropped out of the race. Comer, in the letter, said Sams was “the first line of defense to spin negative stories about the President and his mishaps.”
Zients was Biden’s second chief of staff and was hired in January 2023 to replace Biden’s longtime aide and former chief of staff Ron Klain. Before Klain left, Zients led Biden’s coronavirus response effort. Comer has already sought testimony from Klain.
Sams, Bates and Jean-Pierre did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Hill could not immediately reach Zients.
The investigation is now going into full force after CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson released bombshell reporting that the White House hid Biden’s decline from the American public in their book “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.”
Some interviews with Biden’s closest advisers have already been scheduled.
Neera Tanden, the former director of the Domestic Policy Council, gave her testimony earlier this week.
Ashley Williams, the former special assistant to the president and deputy director of Oval Office Operations, will sit with staff for a July 11 interview, and Annie Tomasini, a former assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff, will testify July 18.
Comer also sent letters asking for interviews with former senior adviser Anita Dunn, former counselor Steve Ricchetti, and aides Michael Donilon and Bruce Reed.
But the committee has also issued some subpoenas after some did not agree to transcribed interviews.
The panel has subpoenaed Anthony Bernal, a former assistant to the president and senior adviser to the first lady, and also sent a subpoena to Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s doctor.
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