The House Oversight Committee’s investigation into alleged efforts to obscure President Joe Biden’s health condition escalated Wednesday after Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s former White House physician, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights during a closed-door interview with lawmakers.
The session, which lasted less than an hour, left Republican investigators unsatisfied, reported Fox News. Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., emerged visibly frustrated, reading aloud the first two questions posed to O’Connor: “Were you ever told to lie about the president’s health?” and “Did you ever believe President Biden was unfit to execute his duty?” O’Connor refused to answer both.
“He would not answer that question,” Comer said. “Again, President Biden’s White House physician pled the Fifth. This is unprecedented, and I think that this adds more fuel to the fire that there was a cover-up.”
O’Connor’s legal team defended his silence, citing the importance of doctor-patient confidentiality. “This Committee has indicated to Dr. O’Connor and his attorneys that it does not intend to honor one of the most well-known privileges in our law—the physician patient privilege,” his attorneys said in a statement. “Revealing confidential patient information would violate the most fundamental ethical duty of a physician, could result in revocation of Dr. O’Connor’s medical license, and would subject Dr. O’Connor to potential civil liability.”
The committee is probing whether Biden’s top aides concealed evidence of the president’s alleged cognitive and physical decline during his time in office—claims denied by the White House and Biden’s allies. Comer implied that O’Connor’s legal maneuvering only heightened suspicion. “Most people invoke the Fifth when they have criminal liability,” he said. “And so that’s what would appear on the surface here.”
O’Connor’s lawyers rejected that interpretation. “We want to emphasize that asserting the Fifth Amendment privilege does not imply that Dr. O’Connor has committed any crime,” they said, quoting a Supreme Court precedent: “One of the Fifth Amendment’s basic functions is to protect innocent men who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.”
Following the brief interview, O’Connor and his legal team exited without addressing reporters. One attorney responded to a question by stating there would be “no comments to press.”
O’Connor’s legal counsel has asked the committee to suspend its investigation while the DOJ probe proceeds. Still, Comer vowed to press forward. “This is something I think every American is concerned about,” he said. “I think that the American people want to know the truth. We’re going to continue this investigation. We’ll move forward.”
The committee has already interviewed former White House staff secretary Neera Tanden about the way the presidential autopen was deployed by Biden staffers and issued subpoenas to additional former Biden aides. As congressional scrutiny intensifies, questions surrounding the transparency of Biden’s health records remain far from settled.
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