Former White House physician Kevin O’Connor’s closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee ended after less than an hour on Wednesday morning, with the doctor giving investigators virtually no new insights.
O’Connor pleaded the Fifth Amendment to multiple questions about his time with former President Joe Biden during his sit-down. It resulted in a hasty end to what could have been an hours-long deposition.
‘I’m going to read the first two questions that were asked. ‘Were you ever told to lie about the president’s health?’ He pleaded the Fifth Amendment. He would not answer that question. The second question, ‘Did you ever believe President Biden was unfit to execute his duty?” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters after the meeting.
‘Again, President Biden’s White House physician pled the fifth. This is unprecedented, and I think that this adds more fuel to the fire that there was a cover-up.’
The doctor’s lawyers said O’Connor’s refusal to answer questions on Fifth Amendment grounds was not an admission of guilt, but rather a response to what they saw as an unprecedented investigatory scope that could have violated the bounds of patient-physician privilege.
‘This Committee has indicated to Dr. O’Connor and his attorneys that it does not intend to honor one of the most well-known privileges in our law – the physician patient privilege. Instead, the Committee has indicated that it will demand that Dr. O’Connor reveal, without any limitations, confidential information regarding his medical examinations, treatment, and care of President Biden,’ the attorney statement said.
‘Revealing confidential patient information would violate the most fundamental ethical duty of a physician, could result in revocation of Dr. O’Connor’s medical license, and would subject Dr. O’Connor to potential civil liability. Dr. O’Connor will not violate his oath of confidentiality to any of his patients, including President Biden.’
The House Oversight Committee has been investigating whether Biden’s former top aides covered up evidence of his mental and physical decline while in office. Biden’s allies have denied such allegations.
But Comer suggested to reporters that O’Connor’s invocation of the Fifth Amendment could have been evidence to the contrary.
‘Most people invoke the fifth when they have criminal liability. And so that’s what would appear on the surface here,’ he said. ‘We’re going to continue to move forward. Obviously, I think his actions today speak loud and clear.’
But O’Connor’s lawyers wrote in their statement, ‘We want to emphasize that asserting the Fifth Amendment privilege does not imply that Dr. O’Connor has committed any crime. In fact, to the contrary, as our Supreme Court has emphasized: ‘One of the Fifth Amendment’s basic functions is to protect
innocent men who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, who made a surprise appearance at the interview and was the only lawmaker there, save for Comer, defended O’Connor’s use of the Fifth Amendment.
‘As someone who has served as a criminal defense attorney and actually been in courtrooms, it’s kind of astounding to hear someone say, if you invoke the Fifth Amendment, that is only because you are guilty,’ Crockett said.
She pointed out that the Trump administration had launched a contemporaneous criminal probe.
‘We have a constitutional right that anyone who may be under fire can invoke. And unfortunately, with this rogue DOJ, it has decided that it wants to run a contemporaneous investigation, criminal investigation, involving the doctor – I think he did what any good lawyer would advise him to do,’ Crockett said.
O’Connor’s lawyers have asked the committee to pause its investigation while the Department of Justice (DOJ) probe is underway.
He and his legal team appeared to catch reporters by surprise with their hasty exit on Wednesday morning, roughly thirty minutes after entering.
One of O’Connor’s lawyers said they would be making ‘no comments to press’ in response to a shouted question by Fox News Digital.
Comer, for his part, insisted the investigation would go on.
‘This is something I think every American is concerned about. I think that the American people want to know the truth. We’re going to continue this investigation. We’ll move forward,’ Comer said. ‘We have several other witnesses that are going to come in for depositions and transcribed interviews. We will do everything in our ability to be transparent with the media and be transparent with the American people.’
The committee previously interviewed former Biden staff secretary Neera Tanden. Comer has summoned several other ex-White House aides to appear.