A former top White House advisor to ex-first lady Jill Biden was subpoenaed to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.
Anthony Bernal, former assistant to the president and senior advisor to the first lady, was compelled for a July 16 closed-door deposition after missing a previously agreed-upon interview date late last month.
He arrived on Capitol Hill for his sworn deposition just before 10 a.m. on Wednesday, saying nothing to reporters on his way inside.
‘We look forward to asking some very important questions I think everyone in America is interested in – who was authorizing the use of the autopen, and whether or not Joe Biden was mentally fit to make decisions,’ House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters on his way inside minutes after Bernal’s arrival.
Comer said he was confident Bernal would comply with the committee. ‘I fully expect Anthony Bernal to answer question,’ he said.
Comer, R-Ky., is investigating allegations that Biden’s former top White House aides covered up signs of his mental and physical decline while in office, and whether any executive actions were commissioned via autopen without the president’s full knowledge. Biden allies have pushed back against those claims.
‘Original Sin,’ a book by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson, positions Bernal as a fiercely protective aide who was dubbed the leader of the ‘loyalty police’ by other former Biden staffers.
His LinkedIn page lists him as currently working as Jill Biden’s chief of staff in the Transition Office of Former President Joe Biden.
Bernal was originally slated to appear last month for a voluntary transcribed interview, but he and his lawyers backtracked after the Trump administration announced it was waiving executive privilege rights for him and several other former White House staffers.
He is the fourth ex-Biden aide to sit down with House GOP investigators.
Longtime Biden advisor Ashley Williams appeared for a nearly six-hour transcribed interview on Friday, following a brief sit-down by former Biden physician Kevin O’Connor.
O’Connor, like Bernal, appeared under subpoena. His closed-door deposition lasted less than 30 minutes, with the doctor invoking the Fifth Amendment on all questions outside his name.
O’Connor’s lawyers said he did so out of concern for doctor-patient confidentiality. Comer, however, accused him of covering for the octogenarian former president.