Top Biden aide Anthony Bernal is refusing to appear before a House Republican-led committee on Thursday to answer questions about the purported cover-up of the president's cognitive decline while in office.
Bernal, known as first lady Jill Biden's "work husband" and a loyal member of the family's inner circle, flouted an invitation to sit for a transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee after the Trump White House waived executive privilege for the testimony.
"With no privilege left to hide behind, Mr. Bernal is now running scared, desperate to bury the truth," said Oversight chairman James Comer (R-Ky.)
"The American people deserve answers and accountability, and the Oversight Committee will not tolerate this obstruction. I will promptly issue a subpoena to compel Anthony Bernal's testimony before the Committee."
Dr. Kevin O'Connor, who served as the former White House physician for Biden, has already been issued a subpoena to appear for testimony Friday.
Another top Biden aide, Neera Tanden, also attempted to dodge testimony.
She said she couldn't testify because of executive privilege. But executive privilege is invoked by the currently-serving president, not a past one. Trump requested that Biden invoke executive privilege to protect his own documents, but Biden repeatedly refused.
When Neera Tanden made the same request, you know that Trump enjoyed telling her to get stuffed.
Bernal's move comes after former White House Domestic Policy Council director Neera Tanden testified to the Oversight panel on Tuesday, without the shield of privilege covering her statements.
"After balancing the Legislative and Executive Branch interests, as required under the accommodation process, it is the President's view that this presents an exceptional situation in which the congressional need for information outweighs the Executive Branch's interest in maintaining confidentiality," wrote Gary Lawkowski, deputy White House counsel, in a Monday letter to Tanden.
Comer said Tanden revealed in her testimony that she controlled access to Biden's autopen -- despite having "minimal interaction" with the president -- and sent numerous "decision memos" to an "inner circle" of White House advisers for approval.
"Her testimony raises serious questions about who was really calling the shots in the Biden White House amid the President's obvious decline," the Oversight chairman thundered.
Tanden was one of the main operators of the presidential autopen. She admitted that while she affixed Biden's fake signature to pardons, she didn't know who had actually authorized these pardons.
In other words, it wasn't Biden. One of Biden's aides would tell her to activate President Autopen, and she ran hundreds of pardons through the Presidential Simulator.
Neera Tanden, former head of Biden's Domestic Policy Council, admitted that she authorized autopen signatures without knowledge of who issued the final approval in a closed-door hearing before the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, according to Fox News.
In her role as staff secretary, before she was moved to the Domestic Policy Council, Tanden "was responsible for handling the the flow of documents to and from the President," sending decision memos to "Biden's inner circle" and affixing the president's autopen signature to the documents when she received approval. Tanden was not privy to any of the decision-making process or who was giving the final approval. She rarely interacted with Biden. The system, according to her opening statement, was a relic of previous administrations.
So she would make a decision about what orders or pardons should be signed, and send those "decision memos" to the inner circle controlling the White House. The inner circle would approve her "decision memos" and instruct her to fire up President Autopen. But, criticially: She wasn't ever talking to Biden and had no idea of who was actually making these decisions.
And she claims that this is Just How It's Always Been Done.
Perjury.
Tanden denied that she had ever discussed the former president's fitness for office, per Fox News. "I had no experience in the White House that would provide any reason to question his command as President. He was in charge," she said in her statement.
That's another lie.
When asked by a reporter after the hearing if there had been an "effort to disguise President Biden's condition," she quickly denied it as she walked away.
"Her testimony raises serious questions about who was really calling the shots in the Biden White House amid the President's obvious decline," Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement.
Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, who's ditched her cuck, says that it's extremely unusual for the person who handles the presidential paperwork to never interact with the president whose orders she's allegedly executing.