House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (Ky.) subpoenaed President Biden's longtime doctor this week, as a delayed reckoning with the cover-up of the former president's cognitive decline continues.
The subpoena comes after lawyers for physician Kevin O'Connor refused a request to sit for a transcribed interview about "the circumstances surrounding your assessment in February 2024 that former President Biden was ‘a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency."
The doctor has had a cozy relationship with the Biden family and was even involved with one of their business ventures, raising doubts about his credibility.
"Among other subjects, the Committee expressed its interest in whether your financial relationship with the Biden family affected your assessment of former President Biden’s physical and mental fitness to fulfill his duties as President," Comer wrote.
The subpoena requires O'Connor to appear before the House Oversight Committee on June 27.
"In lieu of full compliance, your counsel suggest a set of written interrogatories that would afford them as well as an unnamed medical ethics expert the ability to 'closely evaluate' your answers. This is not acceptable and will not satisfy the Committee’s legitimate oversight and legislative needs," Comer wrote.
Comer rebutted O'Connor's excuses for not appearing before Congress, which included "physician-patient privilege" and a section of law that O'Connor quoted "selectively."
"The plain language of this Section is clear: it only limits a physician’s ability to disclose confidential patient information in ‘Federal courts in the District of Columbia and District of Columbia courts,'” the letter explained. “The D.C. Court of Appeals has affirmed this interpretation, stating that the law creates ‘an evidentiary privilege only, and extends no further than the courtroom door.’ Congress is not a court; this Section therefore in no way precludes you from appearing and testifying your role as Physician to former President Biden.”
O'Connor has been Biden's doctor since 2009, when the former president was, compared to today, cognitively sharp. The doctor's failure to notice a decline in Biden's condition is suspicious, to say the least.
As recently as February 2024, O'Connor certified that Biden was fit for duty, despite never giving him a cognitive test. Months later, as Biden faced pressure to step aside following a disastrous debate, O'Connor downplayed multiple visits that Biden received from a Parkinson's specialist.
“Seeing patients at the White House is something that Dr. Cannard has been doing for a dozen years,” O’Connor wrote in a letter at the time. “Dr. Cannard was chosen for this responsibility not because he is a movement disorder specialist, but because he is a highly trained and highly regarded neurologist here at Walter Reed and across the Military Health System, with a very wide expertise which makes him flexible to see a variety of patients and problems.”
After Biden's re-election campaign imploded last summer, O'Connor told a New York Post reporter that Biden's condition was "excellent" and insisted that a cognitive test was not necessary because Biden showed up to work "every day."
O'Connor is just one member of Biden's circle who is facing scrutiny for the scandalous cover-up, with former first lady Jill Biden facing accusations of "elder abuse."
A source told the New York Post that Congress is also seeking testimony from former press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who repeatedly vouched for Biden's cognitive fitness and stonewalled questions about his treatment.
