Former White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates and former Special Assistant to the President Ian Sams will testify in the coming weeks.
Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and other high profile spokespeople for the Biden administration are set to testify for a congressional investigation into the suspected coverup of former President Joe Biden’s worsening mental acuity.
Jean-Pierre is set to testify voluntarily before the House Oversight Committee on September 12, according to an Oversight Committee aide. Former White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates and former Special Assistant to the President Ian Sams, two prominent Biden spokesmen, are scheduled to testify on September 5 and August 21, respectively.
Additionally, former White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients is slated to testify on September 18. Zients oversaw the Biden White House from February 2023 to the end of the former president’s term in January, making him another key witness in the investigation.
The House Oversight Committee is investigating the extent to which Biden’s top aides hid the president’s mental decline from the public and whether they used the presidential autopen to make executive decisions without Biden’s approval. Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) requested testimony from all four of the former Biden aides last month to further the investigation, which is in its early stages.
Jean-Pierre was the most prominent spokesperson for the Biden administration and routinely defended President Biden’s cognitive abilities. She infamously denounced videos of Biden’s mishaps as “cheap fakes” in June 2024 after he appeared to freeze up at a lavish Hollywood fundraiser. Likewise, in June 2022, Jean-Pierre claimed Biden was so quick on his feet she struggled to keep up with him.
“Oh, my gosh, he’s the President of the United States, you know, he – I can’t even keep up with him,” she told CNN host Don Lemon.
After Biden’s term, Jean-Pierre became a registered independent and is releasing a memoir on her time in the administration. Her performance as White House press secretary was widely considered to be sub-optimal.
Bates was another Biden spokesperson who regularly defended Biden’s mental capacity. When Biden’s political career was teetering on the brink, Bates defended Biden’s foreign policy skills following a bumbling press conference he gave at NATO’s 75th anniversary summit.
Not to be outdone, Sams was the White House’s main spokesperson for defending the president and his son during the House GOP’s impeachment inquiry into their foreign business dealings. Sams also ran cover for Joe Biden when Special Counsel Robert Hur observed Biden’s failing memory in his February 2024 report on whether Biden mishandled classified documents.
Jean-Pierre, Bates, and Sams are all career Democratic operatives. Zients is a businessman and former government official for both Biden and former President Barack Obama.
Several other Biden administration officials are expected to testify behind closed doors in the coming weeks. Two of Comer’s key witnesses, Biden’s physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor and former First Lady Jill Biden’s top aide Anthony Bernal have both invoked their Fifth Amendment right rather than answer questions in front of the Oversight Committee.
Joe Biden has dismissed the possibility that his staffers used the presidential autopen to sign documents without his knowledge.
“I made every single one of those. And — including the categories, when we set this up to begin with,” Biden told the New York Times when discussing his presidential pardons.
“And so — but I understand why Trump would think that, because obviously, I guess, he doesn’t focus much. Anyway, so — yes, I made every decision.”
Emails obtained by the New York Times appeared to show Biden did not approve every individual who was pardoned, but made decisions on the standards used for deciding the pardons.
Comer’s investigation is the highest profile congressional probe into the Biden administration’s autopen usage and the former president’s mental decline. President Donald Trump has also ordered his Justice Department to investigate the matter and determine whether Biden’s advisers conspired to hide his condition from the American people.