House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has subpoenaed three key White House staffers who are allegedly shielding Joe Biden from media scrutiny and doing his job for him amid his cognitive difficulties.
“I am issuing subpoenas today for White House staff Annie Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, and Ashley Williams to appear for depositions,” Comer announced on X on Wednesday.
Williams is the Special Assistant to the President and Deputy director of Oval Office Operations, Bernal, the Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor to the First Lady, and Tomasini, the Deputy Chief of Staff.
“The White House has shielded these three key aides from testifying about President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents and now we’ve learned through reporting these same aides are also seeking to cover up President Biden’s declining cognitive state inside the White House,” the Chairman added.
Comer had tried to interview Bernal, Tomasini, and Williams during his investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents after the Committee discovered that they had previously visited an office where classified documents were found. Joe Biden had insisted that he was “surprised” by the discovery of the documents in November 2022.
Comer said these low-level staffers’ attempts to hide Biden’s mental decline amount to a major cover-up.
“These three people I have subpoenaed—no name people, very behind the scenes staffers—have been leading the coverup,” Comer told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Thursday.
In his letters to the three, Comer wrote that the committee is “concerned” that each official is “one of several White House staffers who have taken it upon themselves to run the country while the President cannot.”
According to Axios, all three staffers “are low-profile but very influential inside the White House.”
Comer said in his letters that the Committee is investigating the scope of their responsibilities, telling Tomasini that she has “specifically has been identified as having uncharacteristic access to even the President’s personal residence and has taken steps since early in President Biden’s term to ‘rope off’ the President.”
The Chairman added that “it appears as though Tomasini has firsthand knowledge of the extent to which President Biden is personally carrying out the duties of his office and whether he is capable of doing so.”
A former Biden aide reportedly told Oversight Republicans that these three employees have created “a protective bubble around” Biden and he is “staffed so closely that he’s lost all independence.”
It has been evident for years that Joe Biden is kept on a short leash during public appearances, with staffers often barring reporters from asking questions when he’s done speaking, and shooing them out of the room.
The 81-year-old has repeatedly been caught on camera saying “I’m not allowed” to take questions or “I’ll get in trouble” during these tightly controlled appearances. For more important events, he is given a list of pre-approved reporters to call upon.
“They’ve been protecting Joe Biden, they’ve been limiting his interactions,” Comer told Bartiromo. “They’ve been writing note cards saying ‘stand up,’ ‘sit down,’ ‘shake this person’s hand,’ ‘turn around and leave,’ ‘head towards the exit.'”
Oversight Republicans said that “Biden is clearly unfit for office, yet his staff are trying to hide the truth from the American people.”
According to Axios, Democrats—including Biden officials—”have been bracing for potential congressional probes into his mental fitness,” since his disastrous debate performance on June 27.
In response to the subpoenas, White House spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement: “Like everything Congressman Comer has done over the past year, these subpoenas are a baseless political stunt intended for him to get media attention instead of engage in legitimate oversight.”
“His partisan attacks on the president have been discredited, and now he continues to debase the House by weaponizing subpoenas to get headlines instead of seeking information through the proper constitutional process.”
On Fox Business, Thursday, Comer promised to get to the bottom of what looks like a “major cover-up” of Biden’s “shadow government.”
“What it appears may have been happening is that these three no-name staffers may have been running a shadow government,” he said. “I think this is a major cover-up.”
The Oversight Chairman told Bartiromo that thanks to the Biden family’s corrupt, influence-peddling schemes, we could “have a Manchurian president” on our hands and these three unelected staffers could be part of “a shadow government” with access to national security information.
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