An aide in the Biden White House testified behind closed doors Friday as House Republicans continue their investigation into the alleged cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and the use of the presidential autopen for pardons and other executive actions.
Ashley Williams, a deputy assistant, senior adviser, and director of strategic outreach in the Biden White House, testified for more than six hours in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government reform, the Washington Examiner reported. She did not take questions from the media.
Williams was the second Biden official to be deposed by the committee this week after Biden’s personal physician, Kevin O’Connor, testified Wednesday. O’Connor, who was subpoenaed to testify, pleaded the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination as well as citing doctor-patient confidentiality in refusing to answer the committee’s questions.
Williams voluntarily testified after a request in May by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the committee’s chair.
“The Committee remains concerned that you, as Deputy Assistant and Senior Advisor to the President and Director of Strategic Outreach, were involved in running interference on behalf of the former President and perhaps performing duties exclusively reserved for the President of the United States,” Comer wrote in a May 22 letter to Williams. “Given public reporting that former White House staff ‘aggressively stage managed’ the former President and focused on minute details to ‘minimize signs of how age has taken a toll on the oldest president in U.S. history,’ the Committee seeks to understand the extent of your influence over the former President and your knowledge of whether the former President was personally discharging the duties of his office.”
Comer noted the committee asked her to voluntarily testify on Oct. 11, 2023, and then subpoenaed her to testify on July 10, 2024, “but the former White House obstructed the Committee’s investigation and prevented your testimony.”
The House was not in session Friday, but the Examiner reported that one committee member, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, was spotted leaving the hearing room and said Williams was cooperating.
“I do think that it is important that I show up because if they are going to make allegations about the former commander in chief, egregious allegations as they continue to wage, I want to make sure that I’m in the room to correct the record,” Crockett said.
The committee expanded its investigation following the release of the book “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson.
“People working on the events noted that aides like Annie Tomasini and Ashley Williams were directing his every step to a degree they hadn’t before,” the book stated, according to the Examiner.
Tomasini, a former deputy chief of staff, will appear before the committee on July 18. Neera Tanden, who was director of the Biden White House Domestic Policy Council, testified last month. Anthony Bernal, a senior adviser to Jill Biden, was scheduled to appear the same week but refused after President Donald Trump waived executive privilege for all of the former aides in the investigation. Bernal is expected to appear Wednesday for a deposition after being subpoenaed.
The transcripts from the closed-door interviews are expected to be made public. Comer told the Examiner last month that no transcripts would be released before they are all concluded. However, footage of O’Connor’s interview was released Wednesday night after he pleaded the Fifth. The scheduled interviews are set to take place through Aug. 7.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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