Former President Joe Biden walks together with his White Home doctor, Kevin O’Connor, outdoors the White Home on Aug. 28, 2023. O’Connor declined to testify Wednesday as a part of an investigation by Republicans on the Home Oversight Committee into Biden’s psychological health.
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
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Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Former President Joe Biden’s longtime doctor, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, has mentioned he is not going to testify as a part of a Republican-led congressional investigation into Biden’s well being whereas in workplace.
O’Connor declined to reply questions throughout a deposition scheduled for Wednesday in entrance of the Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities, asserting physician-patient privilege in addition to his proper towards self-incrimination beneath the Fifth Modification. In an announcement, his attorneys mentioned the choice “was made essential by the distinctive circumstances of this deposition.”
O’Connor, who served as Biden’s doctor for all 4 years of his presidency, was subpoen backyard to testify as a part of an investigation into what Republicans describe as “the cover-up of President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.”
Although repeatedly rejected by the Biden administration, concern and hypothesis surrounding the previous president’s bodily and psychological health plagued the latter years of his time period. Since leaving workplace, new reporting has alleged that Biden’s employees could have taken steps to cover his decline, which has fueled further questions from GOP lawmakers. It additionally comes simply months after Biden introduced that he had been identified with most cancers.
A press release supplied to the committee on behalf of O’Connor mentioned that cooperating with the probe would have violated his skilled obligation to keep up affected person data and risked the revocation of his medical license.
“Dr. O’Connor is not going to violate his oath of confidentiality to any of his sufferers, together with President Biden,” it mentioned.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who chairs the committee, criticized O’Connor for his choice to “disguise behind the Fifth Modification.”
“The American individuals demand transparency, however Dr. O’Connor would reasonably conceal the reality,” Comer mentioned in an announcement. “We are going to proceed to interview extra Biden White Home aides to get the solutions People deserve.”
Comer has referred to as for a slew of former Biden officers to testify, together with former White Home Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and former senior advisers Anita Dunn and Michael Donilon. He is additionally requested interviews from Ronald Klain and Jeff Zients, each of whom served as chief of employees to Biden at completely different factors throughout his time period.
Regardless of criticism from Republican lawmakers, O’Connor’s attorneys famous of their assertion Wednesday that President Trump has additionally beforehand exercised his Fifth Modification proper, highlighting a 2022 deposition in a New York State Lawyer Common investigation, the place Trump mentioned that, “anybody in my place not taking the Fifth Modification can be a idiot, an absolute idiot.”
Biden addressed and rejected allegations that his cognitive well being declined within the closing 12 months of his presidency throughout an look on ABC’s The View in Could.
“They’re mistaken,” Biden mentioned. “There’s nothing to maintain that.”
