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Each time, O’Connor delivered the same shielded response:
“On the advice of counsel, I must respectfully decline to answer based on the physician patient privilege and the reliance on my right under the Fifth Amendment.”
For House Oversight Chair James Comer, it was practically a political gift wrapped in gold paper.
“This is unprecedented,” Comer said afterward. “And I think that this adds more fuel to the fire that there was a cover-up.”
Republicans pounced, painting O’Connor’s silence as a glaring red flag. Comer fired off a blistering statement:
“It’s clear there was a conspiracy to cover up President Biden’s cognitive decline after Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician and family business associate, refused to answer any questions and chose to hide behind the Fifth Amendment.”
Even though Dr. O’Connor’s legal team insisted he’s done nothing wrong, the optics are brutal for the White House. O’Connor’s lawyers explained:
“We want to emphasize that asserting the Fifth Amendment privilege does not imply that Dr. O’Connor has committed any crime.”
But to many Republicans, silence speaks volumes.
Meanwhile, the scandal isn’t just about Biden’s mental or physical health. A separate controversy is spiraling around allegations that Biden’s staff increasingly relied on an autopen — a mechanical device that duplicates his signature — for key executive orders and pardons, especially as rumors of cognitive decline swirled.
Investigators claim they’ve uncovered a spike in autopen use starting in mid-2022 — precisely when concerns about Biden’s condition allegedly escalated behind the scenes.
According to reports, Biden personally signed documents during his first 17 months as president. But after June 2022, his mechanical pen took over more and more of the paperwork.
Records show the first autopen commutation involved Brittany Krambeck on June 13, 2022. A month later, the machine’s signature started appearing on executive orders. From mid-July onward, it allegedly signed every executive order through the rest of the year.
Republicans view this pattern as damning evidence that Biden’s inner circle was shielding the president from the public — and possibly from even routine presidential duties.
Former President Trump had been obsessed with this possibility, previously ordering a Justice Department investigation into whether Biden’s staff were running the country through “autopen abuse.”
Trump called the practice:
“one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history.”
The issue exploded further after the release of “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” — a bombshell book by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson. The book described a presidency increasingly governed by a tight group of handlers managing Biden’s appearances, his schedule, and even his interactions with Cabinet members to avoid embarrassing lapses.
Tapper and Thompson revealed:
“One person told us that the presidency was, at best, a five-person board with Joe Biden as chairman.”
In interviews, Tapper admitted he regretted not probing deeper into Biden’s condition during earlier reporting:
“I barely scratched the surface.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson added another layer of intrigue, recalling a disturbing exchange with Biden over natural gas exports. When confronted about an executive order, Johnson claimed Biden replied:
“I didn’t do that.”
Johnson later admitted he was left deeply unsettled about who’s truly running the country.
Democrats like Rep. Jasmine Crockett have leapt to O’Connor’s defense, arguing he was simply following wise legal counsel amid overlapping investigations and potential professional risks.
“With this rogue DOJ that has decided that it wants to run a contemporaneous investigation, criminal investigation involving the doctor, I think that he did what any good lawyer would advise him to do,” Crockett said.
Yet for Republicans, O’Connor’s refusal to testify became the perfect headline — proof, they say, that the White House has secrets it’s desperate to keep buried.
Even though using an autopen isn’t illegal, the timing and the circumstances now give conservatives fresh ammunition to question Biden’s capacity to govern.
Comer emerged from the deposition crowing that O’Connor had effectively become his star witness — not through revelations, but through his refusal to talk.
The fallout from Wednesday’s hearing ensures this fight is far from over. For Biden’s inner circle, the strategy to keep a lid on questions about the president’s health may have just blown up in their faces.
