WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s former White House physician is refusing answer questions as part of the House Republican investigation into Biden’s health in office.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor invoked doctor-client privilege and his rights under the Fifth Amendment during an appearance Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee, his attorneys said.
Republicans are conducting a sweeping investigation into Biden’s actions in office and questioning whether the Democrat’s use of an autopen in office may have been invalid. They have also claimed that some policies carried out by the White House autopen may be invalid if it is proven that Biden was mentally incapacitated for some part of his term.
Biden has strongly denied that he was not in a right state of mind at any point while in office, calling the claims “ridiculous and false.”
David Schertler, one of O’Connor’s lawyers, said in a written statement he prepared for the committee that the doctor would not violate his oath of confidentiality with his patients. He also said the House Oversight committee should hold off on its investigation until Attorney General Pam Bondi concludes an investigation that the Oversight Committee’s chair, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, said she has launched into the use of the autopen.
“The pending Department of Justice criminal investigation leaves Dr. O’Connor no choice but to invoke his constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to any questions posed by the Committee,” Schertler said in the statement.
Republicans on the Oversight Committee had no immediate comment.
In a June subpoena of O’Connor, Comer said that claims of physician-patient privilege under the American Medical Association’s code of ethics “lack merit” because that code is not part of federal law. He said the committee’s subpoena meets the AMA’s own requirement that physicians must share a patient’s medical information if “legally compelled to disclose the information” or “ordered to do so by legally constituted authority.”
Comer has said his committee will release a report of all its findings after the probe is complete. He has issued subpoenas for O’Connor and Anthony Bernal, former chief of staff to former first lady Jill Biden. Last month, Neera Tanden, former director of Biden’s domestic policy counsel, gave voluntary testimony.
Comer has requested testimony from nearly a dozen former senior Biden aides, including former White House chiefs of staff Ron Klain and Jeff Zients; former senior advisers Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn; former deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, former counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti, former deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini and a former assistant to the president, Ashley Williams.
President Donald Trump’s White House has waived executive privilege, a right that protects many communications between the president and staff from Congress and the courts, for almost all of those senior staffers. That clears the way for those staffers to discuss their conversations with Biden while he was president.
