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Ex-White House deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed is sitting down with congressional investigators probing whether top Biden administration aides covered up signs of mental decline in the former president.
Reed arrived just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, saying nothing to reporters on his way into the closed-door interview with staff on the House Oversight Committee.
The longtime Biden ally is the ninth former White House official to appear in the probe and the sixth to come in voluntarily — three others, ex-White House doctor Kevin O’Connor and former advisors Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini, were compelled via congressional subpoena.
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House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., is investigating whether former President Joe Biden’s inner circle covered up signs of mental decline, and whether that means autopen signatures were used for executive decisions without Biden’s full awareness. Of particular interest to investigators are the myriad clemency orders signed toward the end of Biden’s presidency.
But the former president and his allies have pushed back on any allegations of impropriety. Biden himself told The New York Times last month that he was behind every decision made on pardons and commutations.
Reed, like many of those who appeared before him, has a relationship with Biden going back over a decade.
He was chief of staff to the vice president under the Obama administration from January 2011 until December 2013. Reed’s tenure in that role was bookended by Ron Klain and Steve Ricchetti, respectively — both of whom have already spoken to House investigators on voluntary terms.
It’s not likely, however, that Reed’s testimony will provide any sort of smoking gun for investigators.
The Biden allies who have appeared voluntarily so far have all asserted they believed the ex-president was fully capable of being commander-in-chief, though some, like Klain, have conceded his memory got duller over time.
Others, like Ricchetti and ex-senior advisor Mike Donilon, suggested they believed Biden remained as sharp as ever and would have been for another four years, sources said previously.
In contrast, those who appeared under subpoena all pleaded the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering any substantive questions.
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Reed was reportedly among the former aides dubbed as part of Biden’s “Politburo” calling shots at the White House toward the end of his term, according to Axios reporter Alex Thompson and CNN host Jake Tapper, who wrote, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.”
No lawmakers are expected to sit in for Reed’s transcribed interview; it’s common for such sit-downs to be staff-led by lawyers for both Democrats and Republicans on the committee.
It could go on for several hours, however. All the five transcribed interviews before Reed’s took at least four hours. Ricchetti’s notably went roughly eight hours.
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