Former White Home doctor Kevin O’Connor, who served as physician to former President Joe Biden, requested a delay to his upcoming testimony earlier than the Home Oversight Committee this week.
O’Connor was scheduled to testify on Wednesday, however is now in a disagreement with the committee over the scope of the questions he will likely be anticipated to reply throughout his testimony. The committee, led by Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is interviewing the physician as a part of its investigation into Biden’s psychological health and his administration’s use of an autopen.
A lawyer for O’Connor requested the testimony be delayed to July 28 or August 4 in a letter to Comer.
“Dr. O’Connor has authorized and moral obligations that he should fulfill and for which violations carry critical penalties to him professionally and personally,” the letter says.
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“We’re unaware of any prior event on which a Congressional Committee has subpoenaed a doctor to testify in regards to the remedy of a person affected person. And the notion {that a} Congressional Committee would accomplish that with none regard in anyway for the confidentiality of the physician-patient relationship is alarming.”
A spokesman for the Oversight Committee replied in an announcement that O’Connor and his authorized workforce have been merely attempting to “stonewall” the method.
The committee stated O’Connor is welcome to object to particular person questions throughout his testimony. However O’Connor isn’t allowed, within the committee’s view, to delay or decline a congressional subpoena as a result of issues over questions on doubtlessly privileged info.
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The talk over O’Connor’s testimony comes weeks after a former prime aide to Biden, Neera Tanden, instructed the Oversight Committee that she was approved to direct autopen signatures however was unaware of who within the president’s interior circle was giving her ultimate clearance.
Throughout Tanden’s interview earlier than Congress final month, which lasted greater than 5 hours, she instructed lawmakers that, in her position as employees secretary and senior advisor to the previous president between 2021 and 2023, she was approved to direct autopen signatures on behalf of Biden, an Oversight Committee official instructed Fox Information.
“Ms. Tanden testified that she had minimal interplay with President Biden, regardless of wielding large authority,” Comer stated on the time. “She defined that to acquire approval for autopen signatures, she would ship choice memos to members of the President’s interior circle and had no visibility of what occurred between sending the memo and receiving it again with approval. Her testimony raises critical questions on who was actually calling the pictures within the Biden White Home amid the President’s apparent decline. We are going to proceed to pursue the reality for the American individuals.”
The Related Press contributed to this report.
