Neera Tanden, Anthony Bernal, Ashley Williams, and Annie Tomasini have set transcribed interview dates before the House Oversight Committee.
Four former top Biden aides are set to testify behind closed doors as part of the ongoing congressional investigation into the former president’s mental decline and allegations that members of his administration were making important policy decisions without his input.
Neera Tanden, Anthony Bernal, Ashley Williams, and Annie Tomasini have set transcribed interview dates before the House Oversight Committee, an Oversight Committee aide told NR.
Tanden and Bernal will have interviews later this month, and Williams and Tomasini will appear in mid-July. All four aides had senior roles in the Biden administration and received interview requests from the Oversight Committee last month.
Bernal and Tomasini featured prominently in the bombshell book Original Sin, a deeply reported expose on the extent to which Biden’s top aides covered up his declining mental state. Authored by Axios reporter Alex Thompson and CNN host Jake Tapper, Original Sin placed renewed scrutiny on the previous administration’s attempts to conceal Biden’s worsening mental acuity from the American people.
Known as former first lady Jill Biden’s “work husband,” Bernal enforced loyalty to the Bidens inside the White House and was despised by his colleagues, according to Original Sin. The book details how Bernal and Tomasini made their way into President Biden’s inner circle, described by members of the administration as the “Politburo” in a reference to high-ranking officials in communist parties.
Last week, Comer subpoenaed Biden’s longtime personal physician Kevin O’Connor, demanding that he testify as part of the Biden cover-up investigation. In the wake of Biden’s prostate cancer announcement, O’Connor is facing allegations that he covered up Biden’s decline by giving the president a clean bill of health after a 2024 physical. It is unclear whether Biden was appropriately screened for prostate cancer during his time in office, given the aggressive nature of his current illness.
Comer has also requested testimony from other members of the “Politburo” mentioned throughout Original Sin, all of whom are longtime Biden loyalists with influential roles in the previous administration.
As part of their investigation, Comer and his committee are looking into the Biden White House’s use of the autopen, a device that can be used to replicate the president’s signature. The device has historically been used to sign ceremonial letters and other non-official documents, but Biden’s aides used it to sign official memos, pardons, and executive orders, according to an investigation by the Heritage Foundation.
Biden brushed off the autopen allegation in a statement released earlier this month.
“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” Biden said
In addition to the Oversight Committee investigation, President Trump signed an executive order earlier this month directing the White House counsel, Justice Department, and other relevant authorities to investigate the matter.
“He was never for open borders. He was never for transgender for everybody. He was never for men playing in women’s sports. I mean, he changed and — all of these things that changed so radically,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last week, when pressed by National Review for his reaction to Biden’s dismissal of the investigation. “I said it during the debate, and I say it now: he didn’t have much of an idea of what was going on.”
“Essentially, whoever used the autopen was the president,” Trump said.
Biden’s mental struggles eventually caused him to drop out of the presidential race last summer after his disastrous June 2024 debate performance and a subsequent revolt from the Democratic Party and its media allies. Before that, conservatives had long pointed out Biden’s mishaps and memory issues during public appearances and speeches dating back to his 2020 presidential run.
Those observations were substantiated by special counsel Robert Hur’s observations in February 2024 that Biden was a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” and would have been perceived as such by a jury. Democrats strongly disputed Hur’s report at the time, but Hur was vindicated once Biden’s worsening mental fitness became undeniable.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris ended up replacing Biden atop the Democratic ticket and lost convincingly to President Donald Trump this past November. Trump also allowed the GOP to reclaim a 53-47 Senate majority, putting Democrats in the political wilderness for the time being.