Biden aide denounces GOP probe into former president's health as
baseless and denies any cover-up
[July 31, 2025]
By MATT BROWN and MICHELLE L. PRICE
WASHINGTON (AP) — A longtime close aide to President Joe Biden on
Wednesday denounced Republican investigations into the former president
as “baseless” in testimony to lawmakers and defended Biden as capable of
carrying out his presidential duties “at all times.”
Steve Ricchetti, a senior advisor to Biden during his presidency, wrote
in his opening statement to the House Oversight Committee that he was
willing to answer lawmakers' questions about Biden's mental state while
in office despite Republicans' effort to “intimidate officials who
served in the previous administration.”
“I believe it is important to forcefully rebut this false narrative
about the Biden presidency and our role in it,” Ricchetti said.
“There was no nefarious conspiracy of any kind among the president’s
senior staff, and there was certainly no conspiracy to hide the
president’s mental condition from the American people,” wrote Ricchetti,
who has served as an aide to Biden since 2012. He said Biden was “fully
capable” of carrying out his duties throughout his term.
Ricchetti’s testimony comes after weeks of appearances from former Biden
aides as House Republicans seek to build their investigation, which is
central to their oversight agenda as they seek to turn the spotlight
back to the last administration.
Some former staffers, including Biden's physician, Kevin O'Connor, and
Anthony Bernal, a top aide to former first lady Jill Biden, invoked
their Fifth Amendment rights and declined to answer questions from the
committee. Others, including former White House chief of staff Ron Klain
and Neera Tanden, former director of the Domestic Policy Council, have
answered the committee's questions at length.
The committee will hear from seven more senior Biden staffers in the
coming weeks.
The Trump White House has launched its own inquiry into Biden. In June,
Trump issued an executive order that argued there were “clear
indications” that Biden “lacked the capacity to exercise his
presidential authority” and ordered an investigation into “whether
certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental
state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and
responsibilities of the president.”
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Ricchetti argued the Republican-led inquiries were “an obvious
attempt to deflect from the chaos of this administration’s first six
months." He contrasted it with what he said were Biden's
accomplishments on issues like infrastructure, inflation, climate
policy and the coronavirus response.
“I firmly believe that at all times during my four years in the
White House, President Biden was fulfilling his constitutional
duties. Did he stumble? Occasionally. Make mistakes? Get up on the
wrong side of the bed? He did — we all did. But I always believed —
every day — that he had the capability, character, and judgment to
be President of the United States,” Ricchetti said.
At the heart of the Republican probe is a legal dispute over the
Biden White House's use of the autopen, a device used in all
presidential administrations to issue the president's signature for
laws and executive orders. Congressional Republicans and the Trump
administration allege, without evidence, that Biden was not in a
cogent state of mind for much of his presidency and that many
policies enacted during his time in office may consequently be
illegal.
Biden has called Trump and House Republicans “liars” for the claim
and said he “made every single one" of the decisions in office that
involved an autopen. Biden's aides are now echoing that sentiment
directly to the committee.
Republicans are still eager to highlight Biden’s various gaffes as a
political cudgel against Democrats.
Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, have largely dismissed House
Republicans’ probe as a distraction from the Trump administration's
agenda. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat who sits on the
House Oversight Committee, said Republicans in the probe “look like
losers” after she exited the deposition for Anthony Bernal, the
former chief of staff to Jill Biden.
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