House Republicans to question Jeff Zients about alleged mental decline cover-up

WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee will bring in four more ex-White House aides for questioning about the alleged cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s mental decline — including the 46th president’s last chief of staff, Jeff Zients, who was recently revealed to have given final approval to last-minute pardons.

Zients, former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, former deputy press secretary Andrew Bates and former White House Counsel’s Office senior adviser Ian Sams have all been asked to sit for transcribed interviews, according to a committee aide.

Last-day clemencies, which included preemptive pardons for Biden family members, had been authorized by Zients in a Jan. 19, 2025, email, hours before the 46th president would leave the White House.

“I approve the use of the autopen for the execution of all of the following pardons,” Zients wrote in the missive to a group of White House aides at 10:31 p.m. that day, according to the New York Times.

Biden maintained in an interview with the outlet that he “made every decision” on 25 warrants for pardons and commutations between last December and January.

So far, the Oversight panel has interviewed four Biden aides — two of whom took the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer any questions about the purported shielding of the president’s diminished mental faculties.

Annie Tomasini, a former special assistant and deputy director of Oval Office operations, had been scheduled to testify earlier this week but will now be deposed Friday after her lawyer requested a subpoena.

Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has declared the probe is uncovering “a historic scandal” and railed against the decision by Biden’s former personal physician Kevin O’Connor and first lady Jill Biden’s top aide Anthony Bernal to invoke their right against self-incrimination.

O’Connor and Bernal both pled the Fifth in response to basic questions about the retired president’s fitness for office and the influence of other parties — including family members — on the executive’s actions.

“Did you advise President Joe Biden to pardon his son Hunter Biden?” Oversight chief counsel Jake Greenberg asked Bernal during his opening line of questioning, to which the onetime “work husband” of Jill Biden declined to respond.

“If you cannot, say, answer a simple question about Joe Biden’s capabilities, then that further demonstrates that he was not in charge of his administration,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) told reporters Wednesday after Bernal’s abbreviated deposition.

“And if he was not in charge of his administration, then every order, every bill that was signed, every memorandum, as far as I’m concerned, are null and void.”

The Florida Republican also suggested that the first lady herself should come in for questioning before the investigative committee.

“I think the possibility is very good that we’ll be asking members of the family to come in,” agreed Comer.

Neera Tanden, a senior adviser who became director of the Domestic Policy Counsel, and Ashley Williams, another special assistant and deputy director of Oval Office operations, previously underwent transcribed interviews without taking the Fifth.

Biden allies have suggested that a parallel Department of Justice probe involving the potential abuse of the presidential autopen could open them up to prosecution based on any testimony to Congress.

The mechanical device has been used since the administration of Harry S. Truman, but Republicans have questioned whether Biden White House aides may have taken advantage of the commander in chief.

Some of the late clemencies granted by the White House included a long list of convicts that were run through the autopen.

Ex-staff secretary Stefanie Feldman often received written accounts from higher-ranking aides confirming it was OK to use the device for Biden’s signature — even when the assistants writing those “blurbs” weren’t in the room to hear the president give that order, according to the Times.

Asked whether there was an effort in the White House to cover up Biden’s diminished mental acuity, Tanden told reporters after her June 24 interview: “Absolutely not.”

Sams, who handled a flood of press inquiries following the publication of special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s “willful” retention of classified documents, will be interviewed Aug. 21.

Hur decided not to charge the president with a crime, citing as one reason his belief a jury would likely view Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”

Bates will be interviewed on Sept. 5, and Jean-Pierre, who recently left the Democratic Party and is writing a book about her time in the administration, will have a sit-down with the Oversight panel on Sept. 12.

Zients’ interview will be held Sept. 18.