The book "Original Sin," co-authored by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson reveals not only an excruciatingly elaborate coverup of an often cognitively absent president but also identifies elite members and affiliates of an internally recognized "Politburo" that headed the country and free world during his extended periods of leadership absence.
That group of nonelected broadly unknown decision-makers for all of us was very small, yet influential in shaping Joe Biden's policies and determining what vital information did and didn't reach his desk.
It wasn't as if his dismal chances of winning reelection weren't broadly and desperately recognized by his party, with his age and failing cognitive state featured front and center.
As an unnamed longtime Biden aide reportedly said: "He just had to win. And then he could disappear for four more years — he'd only have to show proof of life once in a while. When you vote for somebody, you are voting for the people around them too."
Among the top White House influencers, key Politburo member Mike Donilon essentially served as President Biden's influential political director, later leaving the White House in early 2024 to work for his reelection campaign at a princely salary of about $4 million.
Member Steve Ricchetti, a former lobbyist at the Clinton White House and Vice President Biden chief of staff was good at fostering relationships with Capitol Hill and therefore controlled presidential Legislative Affairs.
Bruce Reed, a former speechwriter for Al Gore and top policy aide for Bill Clinton undertook the same role for President Biden.
Ron Klain, the newest addition to Politburo, or rather a returning member, was former VP Biden's first vice presidential chief of staff after working for Clinton's 2016 campaign when Biden was still thinking of running.
According to book authors Tapper and Thompson, Klain was always eager to deliver a progressive agenda to "became one of the most powerful chiefs of staff in modern history" and who did a little bit of everything in the Politburo.
Klain was replaced as Biden's chief of staff by Jeff Zients in 2023 but remained active in the group.
Although not cited as a Politburo member, Jill Biden's top aide Anthony Bernnal carried lots of clout in assuring that staff at all levels were entirely loyal to Joe and policing any talk challenging his mental acuity.
As the book authors observed, "In 2021, this [Biden] gaff-prone reputation meant it was harder for people to figure out if Biden was having senior moments — not just for staffers and reporters, but for world leaders."
They noted that his speechwriters did their best to compensate for his "diminished capabilities."
At limited press conferences, Biden knew the answers only so long as he could read them off a note card someone prepared for him.
He had trouble taping even mundane video remarks without flubbing lines, so they typically limited them to two minutes or less. They made his speeches, even the paragraphs and sentences, shorter.
Special counsel Robert Hur's Biden interviews which began on Sept. 2, 2022, just a few days before mid-term elections regarding illegal classified documents found on his properties, were described as alarmingly rambling and incoherent.
While concluding that President Biden "willfully retained and disclosed classified documents after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen," the report found that "no criminal charges are warranted in this matter because a jury would see Biden as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory" including an inability to remember "even within several years when his son Beau died."
Joe Biden's disastrous public debate performance against Trump finally shocked the nation and world to imagine him as the guy who controls nuclear codes.
As uber-liberal former MSNBC anchor Joy Reid observed, "The universal reaction was somewhere approaching panic."
After the debate, first lady Jill grabbed a microphone from a DJ at a nearby watch party, and sounding like a kindergarten teacher praising an infantile student said: "Joe, you did such a good job! You answered every question! You knew all the facts!"
According to authors Tapper and Thompson, Jill and Hunter had been the most vocal in wanting Joe to run for reelection over the advice of numerous powerful Democratic Party leaders and donors.
Jill later went on the cover of Vogue for the third time in four years with a post-debate note of defiance that they "will not let 90 minutes define the four years he's been president. We will continue to fight."
Good image — terrible optics.
Former high-level Obama adviser David Axelrod is quoted: "They did such a disservice to Joe Biden and to the country. The family as well. I don't understand how you could see him in that condition he's in and think, 'Yeah, you oughta go [run for president again]./ To do that to someone you love."
And what about doing that to the country you love … covering up the fact that the person voters chose to head the country and lead the world isn't capable of competently reading a teleprompter much less directing a Cabinet session or negotiating terms of war or peace?
Special Counsel Robert Hur's report got it very wrong on an important conclusion.
A final jury will not "see Biden as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory."
It will instead remember the whole bunch of these covert collaborators — Joe and Jill included — as saboteurs of bedrock American institutions and values never to forget.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.
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