A top aide to former First Lady Jill Biden suddenly refused to testify Wednesday for a congressional investigation into the coverup of former President Joe Biden’s mental decline during his tenure in the White House.
Anthony Bernal, known for being Jill Biden’s “work husband,” is declining to appear for a closed-door interview before the House Oversight Committee Thursday after previously agreeing to do so, committee Chairman James Comer said.
Comer attributed Bernal’s flip to the Trump White House’s decision to waive executive privilege for the Oversight Committee’s investigation into the actions Joe Biden’s inner circle took to hide the extent to which his mental faculties declined throughout his presidency.
“Now that the White House has waived executive privilege, it’s abundantly clear that Anthony Bernal – Jill Biden’s so-called ‘work husband’ – never intended to be transparent about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and the ensuing cover-up,” Comer said in a statement.
“With no privilege left to hide behind, Mr. Bernal is now running scared, desperate to bury the truth. 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.”
Comer is investigating the Biden White House’s use of the presidential autopen, a device used to replicate Biden’s signature. The autopen is typically used in ceremonial letters and non-official documents, but the Biden administration appears to have used it for executive orders and other official actions.
Biden himself dismissed concerns about suspected autopen usage in a statement 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.
Comer’s investigation is one of several congressional probes into the coverup of Biden’s worsening mental acuity. Separately, President Trump has also directed the Justice Department and other relevant executive authorities to investigate the situation.
Bernal was set to be the second former senior Biden administration aide to testify for Comer’s investigation after Neera Tanden spoke to the committee Tuesday. Tanden is a longtime Democratic operative and currently the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, a Democrat-aligned think tank.
“Ms. Tanden testified that she had minimal interaction with President Biden, despite wielding tremendous authority. She explained that to obtain approval for autopen signatures, she would send decision memos to members of the President’s inner circle and had no visibility of what occurred between sending the memo and receiving it back with approval,” Comer said of Tanden’s testimony.
Two more former top Biden aides, Ashley Williams and Annie Tomasini, are scheduled to testify to the Oversight Committee in July. Comer has also subpoenaed former President Biden’s longtime physician and friend Dr. Kevin O’Connor to testify for the investigation. O’Connor’s role in potentially covering up Biden’s health has the added dimension of Biden’s “aggressive” prostate cancer diagnosis last month given his glowing review of Biden in his 2024 physical.
In addition, Comer is seeking testimony from four other former senior Biden officials, all of whom were part of the “politburo” identified in bombshell book Original Sin detailing the coverup of Biden’s condition.
Authored by Axios reporter Alex Thompson and CNN host Jake Tapper, Original Sin portrays Bernal as a hardcore Biden loyalist whom White House colleagues despised. Bernal was previously accused of bullying workplace colleagues and making inappropriate sexual remarks at various workplaces over more than a decade, including the White House.