FIRST ON FOX – House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is demanding that the White House physician appear before Congress to answer questions on President Biden’s “declining mental state,” while also revealing that the doctor has been involved in the Biden family’s business dealings.
Fox News Digital obtained the letter Comer, R-Ky., sent to Dr. Kevin O’Connor on Sunday. Comer is seeking to question O’Connor, given his “connections” with the Biden family, on whether he is “in a position to provide accurate and independent reviews of the President’s fitness to serve.”
Comer wants to know whether O’Connor’s medical assessments of the president have been improperly influenced by his work with the Biden family with the company Americore.
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“After a concerning debate performance by President Biden against former President Donald Trump on June 27, journalists have rushed to report on what Americans have seen plainly for years: the President appears unwell,” Comer wrote.
President Biden speaks at a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Comer said that because Americans have been questioning Biden’s “ability to lead the country,” his committee has been investigating circumstances surrounding O’Connor’s February assessment of the president.
Comer noted that O’Connor determined in February that the president “is a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old-male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”
Comer, though, pointed to reports that O’Connor did not recommend that Biden take a cognitive test.
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“The Oversight Committee is concerned your medical assessments have been influenced by your private business endeavors with the Biden family,” Comer wrote.
Comer said the committee has obtained evidence that shows he was involved with Americore Health, LLC, along with the president’s brother, James Biden.
President Biden speaks with White House physician Kevin O’Connor as he arrives back at the White House on Aug. 28, 2023. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Americore, a company which operates rural hospitals, has been investigated by the committee as part of its impeachment inquiry against the president – specifically related to James Biden’s work, which brought him more than $600,000.
The committee says James Biden, while serving as a principal at Americore, received payments for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The committee found that James Biden received a $200,000 wire in 2018 from the company that he then used to write a $200,000 check to his brother, President Biden, which he labeled as a “loan repayment.”
James Biden, according to testimony from other Americore employees, did not provide any services to the company, but instead, promised that his “Biden” name could bring funding to the struggling hospital operator from the Middle East.
That employee, Carol Fox, a Chapter 11 trustee for Americore, testified that the loan was provided to Biden with no documentation in return for the promise of funding from the Middle East that never came. She filed a lawsuit against James Biden, saying he made “representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.”
But during James Biden’s interview with the committee earlier this year, he told investigators that O’Connor “provided him counsel in connection with the alleged work he was performing for Americore.”
James Biden arrives to federal court during Hunter Biden’s trial, June 11, 2024, in Wilmington, Delaware. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
“I met with, for example – my brother wasn’t in office at the time. He was a private citizen. And I had gotten through his – as vice president, his personal physician was Colonel Kevin O’Connor,” James Biden testified. “And Kevin O’Connor – there was a very – and still there is an outcry for a solution for post-traumatic stress disorder.”
James Biden said O’Connor “introduced me to a team” that worked with PTSD and alcoholism amid a “backlog” at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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Comer, in the letter, also notes that O’Connor, along with Hunter Biden, “joined a meeting with Jim Biden and the president of a hospital being acquired by Americore.”
Hunter Biden was found guilty on all counts by a Delaware jury. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Meanwhile, the White House maintains that Biden has not been examined by a doctor since February. But during a call with Democratic governors last week, the president himself told governors “he was checked out by a doctor and that everything was fine.”
President Biden speaks at a campaign rally at Sherman Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin, Friday, July 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
“The statements by the White House Press Secretary and President Biden appear inconsistent, and the Committee seeks to understand the extent of your role at the White House at this time,” Comer wrote. “Given your connections with the Biden family, the Committee also seeks to understand if you are in a position to provide accurate and independent reviews of the President’s fitness to serve.”
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Comer requested that O’Connor make himself available for a transcribed interview with counsel for the House Oversight Committee by July 14. He is also demanding all documents and communications that O’Connor has regarding Americore and James Biden.
The request for O’Connor’s cooperation with Congress comes amid calls for Biden to suspend his re-election campaign – even from top Democrats, former staffers and allies.
But the White House maintains that President Biden is “absolutely not” considering dropping out of the 2024 presidential race.
“I am running. I am the leader of the Democratic Party. No one is pushing me out,” Biden said last week.