Karine Jean-Pierre faces the heat over defending 'sharp as ever' Biden's decline
Joe Biden’s former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre arrived before a congressional panel probing the ex-president’s mental decline and use of his autopen.
Jean-Pierre is the latest former Biden official to appear before the House Oversight Committee this year as the panel investigates whether the Democrat’s inner circle of aides sought to cover up the aging executive’s mental decline.
She is the 13th member of Biden’s staff to sit with the committee, which sent out subpoenas to compel testimony from the likes of the president’s former doctor, Kevin O’Connor, and a dozen other senior staffers.
Serving as press secretary between 2022 and 2025, Jean-Pierre had direct access to Biden and repeatedly dispelled concerns about the president’s mental acuity during White House briefings.
Just weeks before Biden stunned the nation and dropped out of the 2024 presidential contest over concerns of his age and capabilities, Jean-Pierre urged Americans during a July 3 White House briefing that the then 81-year-old was 'sharp as ever.'
She tried to relieve fears of his decline by telling the press that Biden, when she interacted with him behind closed doors was engaged, 'strong and resolute.'
The committee wants to know, who, if anyone, was using the president's autopen to sign off on legislation and pardons and more without Biden's full knowledge and explicit permission.
Already the panel has uncovered emails of former Biden administration officials expressing reticence about the use of the mechanized signature machine.
Jean-Pierre arrived Friday morning to speak with congressional investigators probing whether the autopen was misused by Biden staffers
The Biden administration admitted to using the autopen thousands of times. Republicans want to know if some of the pardons signed at the end of Biden's term were created or approved without the executive's knowledge
'What we've seen with the emails that have surfaced in the last week, even the [former Attorney General] Merrick Garland Department of Justice was very concerned about how this administration was using the autopen,' Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters on Friday.
The secretary arrived at a congressional office building this morning but ignored questions from reporters when she arrived. Her interview is expected to go into the afternoon.
KJP ruffled the feathers of her former colleagues over the summer after she announced she was leaving the Democratic Party.
In announcing her move to become an independent, the secretary also announced a new book titled ‘Independent: A look inside a broken White House, outside the party lines,’ which is set to be released on October 21.
‘Everyone thinks this is a grift,’ one former Biden official told Politico of the announcement.
'She made a joke about being an independent last year and now it’s a book. All ideas are monetary — even the dumb ones,' another former staffer disclosed.
While working for Biden's administration Jean-Pierre was one of the most outspoken deniers that the Democrat was losing his ability.
Following Special Counsel Robert Hur's report into Biden's improper handling of classified documents, the attorney wrote that the octogenarian had a 'poor memory' a diminished mental capacity.
Hur's report brought to the forefront scrutiny over Biden's ability that had long simmered in the background.
Soon after its publication, Jean-Pierre and other top White House officials began receiving many more questions about the commander-in-chief's acuity.
'The reality is, that report, that part of the report does not live in reality. It just doesn’t. It is gratuitous. It is unacceptable, and it does not live in reality,' KJP said of the Hur report in early 2024.
The former secretary also received a torrent of questions later that year in June about the former president's ability after videos showed Biden looking confused and disoriented in public settings.
She and the White House began referring to these real videos as 'cheap fakes,' arguing they were deceptively edited to make the president look bad.
