Biden's former doctor asks to delay testimony to House panel, citing patient privilege concerns
Dr. Kevin O'Connor, who served as Biden's physician at the White House, requested a delay until the end of July or early August 'to reach an accommodation that will protect the very substantial privilege and confidentiality interests of Dr. O'Connor and former President Biden,' according to a letter from his lawyer sent to Rep. James Comer of Kentucky on Saturday. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter.
A spokesperson for Oversight Republicans said the committee will follow the House's deposition guidelines, which allow for witnesses to assert privilege on a question-by-question basis, with the committee chair ruling on each claim. But O'Connor is not allowed, in the committee's view, to delay or decline a congressional subpoena due to concerns over questions about potentially privileged information.
The back-and-forth is part of a broader struggle over the scope of the House Republican inquiry into Biden's age and mental fitness, with serious implications for both politics and policy. Republicans 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 claims that he was not in a right state of mind at any point while in office, calling the claims "ridiculous and false.'
The House Oversight Committee first requested O'Connor testify before the committee last July, but the Biden White House blocked his testimony. Comer renewed his request in May and later subpoenaed the doctor in June.
David Schertler, the attorney for O'Connor, in the letter said the committee is refusing to 'accommodate to any degree Dr. O'Connor's objections' over protecting privilege. He said the committee's decision was 'unprecedented' and 'alarming' and warned that it threatened broader principles around medical privacy.
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 promised that the committee will make all its findings public in a report after the inquiry has finished. He has subpoenaed O'Connor and Anthony Bernal, former chief of staff to former first lady Jill Biden. The committee last month heard voluntary testimony from Neera Tanden, former director of Biden's domestic policy counsel.
The committee has also requested the testimony of 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.
The Trump White House has waived executive privilege, a principle that protects many communications between the president and staff from Congress and the courts, for almost 10 senior former Biden staffers. That move clears the way for those staffers to discuss their conversations with Biden while he was president.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Manhattan Democratic Party endorses nominee Zohran Mamdani for mayor
The leadership of the Manhattan Democratic Party overwhelmingly endorsed socialist Zohran Mamdani for mayor after he appeared before the executive members at a meeting Monday night. Party leader and Harlemite Keith Wright, who backed ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, voted 'aye.' The unofficial vote of the party executive committee was 49 in favor and 5 against. 4 The unofficial vote of the party executive committee was 49 in favor and 5 against. Derek French/Shutterstock 'Zohran won the Democratic primary. He ran the most impressive campaign I've seen in 40 years of politics,' Wright, a former Harlem state assemblyman, told The Post after the meeting. Mamdani is expanding his support as the Democratic nominee as two of his opponents, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and Cuomo are running on independent ballot lines. Lawyer Jim Walden is also running as an independent while Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa is the Republican nominee for mayor. Many committee members said they were impressed how Mamdani turned out voters in the primary, particularly young Democrats. 'The Democratic party was adrift. Our party hasn't seen life like we saw on June 24 [the date of the Democratic Party primary] in a long time,' said Greenwich Village district leader Arthur Schwartz. 'Zohran is bringing life back into the party.' 4 A few members complained that Mamdani was changing the party and bringing socialism into it. Manhattan Democratic Party The vote was overwhelming for Mamdani, but not unanimous. A few members complained that Mamdani was changing the party and bringing socialism into it. 'I'm a Democrat. I'm not a socialist Democrat,' said former Harlem state Assemblywoman Inez Dickens, adding that Mamdani had not presented an 'agenda' for black residents. 4 Many committee members said they were impressed how Mamdani turned out voters in the primary, particularly young Democrats. Paul Martinka for NY Post 4 Party leader and Harlemite Keith Wright, who backed ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, voted 'aye.' AP Others were concerned about his anti-Israel stance amid a rise in antisemitism. Mamdani, who fielded questions before the vote, told Democrats that he would fight antisemitism. He also said he would not cut staffing at the NYPD.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Gov. Kotek blames transportation package failure on Republicans ‘who just wanted to go home'
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, at the Oregon State Capitol Library in Salem, Oregon, on Tuesday, June 26, 2024. (Jordan Gale/Oregon Capital Chronicle) Gov. Tina Kotek blamed Republicans for the state Legislature's failure to pass a bill this session that would have provided enough funding for the Oregon Department of Transportation to avoid layoffs. At a news conference Saturday morning, following a late-Friday-night race to end the 2025 legislative session, Kotek touted what she said was progress on most of her key priorities for the state and 'unfinished business' in what was supposed to be passage of a historic transportation investment package. She criticized lawmakers from both parties for ending the session two days before they were constitutionally required. 'I'm here,' she said. 'Constitutional sine die is tomorrow, and legislators have gone home. And they have not produced anything on transportation that we need right now in the state. So that conversation is very much unfinished business.' Kotek hinted she could use her power as governor to call lawmakers back to Salem to finish this 'unfinished business' in a special session. 'There's a process for notifying if, for some reason, I'm going to change any of the bills. I don't know what those will be at this point,' she said. 'As governor, my job is to get the job done. And I have tools at my disposal to get that done. And I just hope everyone's going to show up for work when they need it.' The wins for now, Kotek said, were securing record investments in K-12 education, maintaining funding for housing and homelessness services and enough money to handle costs for the wildfire season. But she did not mask her frustration with lawmakers' inability to pass a bill that would have helped close the state transportation agency's $350 million budget deficit this year. Because of that, she said she would have to issue layoff notices to hundreds of transportation employees next week. 'I have workers, 600 to 700 workers, in the Oregon Department of Transportation, who are now facing layoffs because, for whatever reason, people couldn't come together as Oregonians to fund that,' she said. 'And I would put that at the feet of the folks who could have made that happen — and that is the Republican leadership.' Republican leaders pointed the finger at Democrats, who they said used a secretive behind-the-scenes process that left Republicans out of critical discussions and resulted in bloated proposals shared too late in the six-month session. 'All session long, people asked us: 'Well, what do you think of the transportation package?' And we'd say: 'We haven't seen it,'' House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, said at a news conference Friday night. 'So part of this issue, too, is getting to this last-ditch tax package that nobody supported happened today. That's ridiculous.' Finding a way to fund an agency that relies on gas taxes in a world of growing vehicle electrification, and finding a way to pay for long overdue and long underfunded road, bridge and public transit projects for the next decade, was a key priority for Kotek and Democratic lawmakers in both chambers going into the 2025 session. But the first version of the initial transportation package, House Bill 2025, wasn't publicly available until June 9 — less than three weeks from the June 29 constitutional deadline to end the legislative session. After several weeks of tense negotiations and counterproposals from Republicans and progressive Democrats, that ambitious 10-year, $14.6 billion proposal to fund not only the transportation department, but major bridge, road, bike, pedestrian and public transit projects, turned into a bare bones proposal to raise $2 billion over the next decade just for the state transportation agency. To do this, Democratic lawmakers hastily proposed Friday afternoon to increase the state's 40-cent gas tax by 3 cents and increase vehicle registration and title fees. Kotek met with lawmakers individually from late afternoon through the late evening to lobby for votes on the bill. She said she had them, but Democratic leaders in the House and Senate had called for an end to the session before the House could finish voting on bills that were still on the table, and they took an early vote on the $1 billion end-of-session budget bill that would have been the last ground on which Democrats had standing to bargain with Republicans. Agencies, lawmakers and lobbyists often use the bill, called the 'Christmas tree bill' to negotiate extra money for projects that didn't get much attention earlier in the session. By the time the transportation bill made its way to the floor of the Oregon House Friday night, Republican lawmakers voted not to suspend rules that would have allowed them to fast track its final vote, meaning lawmakers would have had to stay until Saturday or Sunday, which they opted not to do. Drazan said she was opposed to new taxes that would make it more expensive to live in the state, and that while she doesn't want anyone to lose their job, she felt the state was overinvesting in public sector jobs at the expense of making it easier for the private sector to grow. 'The answer to get those jobs back, to be able to have more money in our budget, is to grow the private sector and ensure that we have more tax dollars here,' she said. 'If we lack economic activity, we're not going to be able to sustainably support a budget that's growing anyway.' Kotek gave lawmakers credit for passing budget bills in the midst of chaotic and unpredictable federal actions and funding, and with historically low revenue forecasts due to President Donald Trump's trade and tariff policies. 'There was less money to work with for lawmakers at the end of the day,' she says. 'I can quibble, and we'll probably have comments going forward about some things that were left undone. In general, significant investments were made on those top priorities.' Kotek said she was pleased that the Legislature maintained investments in the statewide shelter system for Oregonians without housing and moving people from shelters to stable housing. She also lauded lawmakers for increasing capacity for youth mental health treatment and residential treatment for Oregonians with substance use disorders, sending a record $11.36 billion to Oregon schools, funding summer school and literacy improvement programs for kids, and finding enough money to get through the current fire season and respond to environmental disasters. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Indianapolis Star
an hour ago
- Indianapolis Star
Indianapolis City-County Council pushes to start youth curfew 2 hours earlier after shooting
After a violent holiday weekend that included a mass shooting downtown in which two teenagers died, the Indianapolis City-County Council is pushing to impose an earlier youth curfew at the urging of the police chief and the mayor. A new proposal introduced at a July 7 council meeting would begin the curfew for all minors in Marion County two hours earlier. The council will also consider measures to hold parents and guardians accountable for their children's actions, including fines and parenting classes for repeat violations. Proposal No. 232 would make it unlawful for minors to be unsupervised in a public place in Marion County during the following hours: The curfew currently begins two hours later in each category, according to state law that the city follows. Under state law, it's illegal for teenagers ages 15-17 to be out alone in public after 1 a.m. on Saturday or Sunday and after 11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday unless they are going to or returning from work, an extracurricular activity, or a religious event, among other exceptions. Children younger than 15 must be in their homes by 11 p.m. every day. The push to restrict the curfew follows a mass shooting involving juveniles gathered near Washington and Illinois Streets in the early hours of July 5, after thousands of people gathered downtown for the annual Fourth of July fireworks show. Two teenagers — Azareaon S. Cole, 15, and Xavion Jackson, 16 — were killed and five other people were injured. Police have charged four teens in connection with the shootings. While the current proposal would only extend the curfew, councilors said they aim to add civil penalties including fines and parenting classes for the parents and guardians of repeat offenders in a July 16 Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee meeting. The amended bill will return to the full council for a vote in a future meeting. Michael-Paul Hart, who leads the 25-member council's six Republicans, said that without penalties for parents, the resolution seems unlikely to improve safety among teens. "We've got a parental problem, sure," Hart said, "but just changing the hours isn't going to change the behavior." In the meantime, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department will redouble its efforts to enforce the existing curfew. Mayor Joe Hogsett said the city will back IMPD's efforts to boost enforcement and save lives. "The youth gun violence we experienced in our city this weekend was tragic, unacceptable — and completely preventable," Hogsett said in a written statement. "Our city's youth have no business being out unsupervised in the middle of the night."
