WASHINGTON — House Republicans want to hear from former President Joe Biden’s doctor and four key aides to discuss his mental and physical decline — after the ex-president, 82, revealed Sunday that he has prostate cancer ahead of the Tuesday release of a bombshell book on the concealment of his waning mental faculties as he sought re-election last year.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Anthony Bernal, Annie Tomasini, Ashley Williams and Neera Tanden each received letters from House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) Thursday demanding that they sit for transcribed interviews over the next month with committee members and staff — with subpoenas likely if they fail to do so.
O’Connor, the jovial but elusive longtime physician and friend of the Biden family — and one-time business associate of Joe’s brother James Biden, is the top target — as medical experts have incredulously asked how he could have missed the president’s cancer that has spread to his bones or proclaimed Biden mentally and physically fit for another four-year term.
The House panel “is investigating the accuracy, transparency, and credibility of your medical assessments of former President Joe Biden given his recent acknowledgment of an advanced physical condition and a publicly apparent cognitive decline,” Comer wrote to O’Connor.
“The Committee continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding your assessment in February 2024 that former President Biden was ‘a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency,’” the letter says.
“Further, the Committee remains interested in whether your financial relationship with the Biden family affected your assessment of former President Biden’s physical and mental fitness to fulfill his duties as President. Given your connections with the Biden family, the Committee seeks to understand if you contributed to an effort to hide former President Biden’s fitness to serve from the American people.”
The other four targets were asked to testify about “the extent of your influence over the former President and your knowledge of whether the former President was personally discharging the duties of his office.”
Bernal served as then-first lady Jill Biden’s bulldog top aide — while allegedly sexually harassing and belittling West Wing colleagues — and ultimately eclipsed even the 46th president’s final chief of staff, Jeff Zients, in both access and influence. He is among the small handful of aides fully trusted by the former first family.
Tomasini, director of Oval Office Operations for three years before completing Biden’s term as a deputy chief of staff, often relayed the then-president’s supposed wishes to other staff members, who wondered whether she was accurately expressing his will or merely making assumptions as Biden struggled to maintain his train of thought both in public and private.
Williams, Tomasini’s deputy for most of Biden’s single term, was incredibly close with Bernal and Tomasini — with the three considered most in-the-loop about the president’s activities.
Tanden, known for her acid tongue in addressing political opponents, led the White House Domestic Policy Council from 2023 to 2025 — as the White House branded videos of Biden appearing confused “cheap fakes” and insisted the public speaking stumbles were being overhyped by political foes.
Comer last year issued subpoenas for the testimony of Bernal, Tomasini and Williams, but the White House declined to cooperate.
Former presidents technically can still assert executive privilege to protect the secrecy of their communications with advisers — even after leaving office — but a sitting president can override that claim, as happened in 2021 when Biden ordered the release of 45 documents to the House select panel that was investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
