Biden's personal doc pleads the 5th, refuses to testify on former president's mental acuity

President Joe Biden's White House doctor Kevin O'Connor has refused to testify during a closed-door interview as part of the House Republicans' effort to get to the bottom of who was running the government while Biden was in mental decline during his term in office.

O'Connor, per Politico, "asserted doctor-patient privilege and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination." He has said previously that "his duties as a doctor complicated his ability to testify under oath about his patient, preventing him from sharing some sensitive information."

The House Republicans are also seeking to determine who in Biden's orbit was aware of his decline and covered that up so that the American public and lawmakers would not know about it. Rep. James Comer, who has been heading up this effort since Biden was in office, said that O'Connor's invocation of the 5th "adds more fuel to the fire that there was a cover up."

Comer had subpoenaed O'Connor and rejected the notion that O'Connor would be prevented from testifying by his relationship with the former president. On Tuesday night, the White House said that they had "waived executive privilege for O’Connor in an effort to compel his cooperation." 

"On the advice of his legal counsel, Dr. O’Connor refused to answer questions that invaded the well-established legal privilege that protects confidential matters between physicians and their patients," the statement from O'Connor's team read. "His assertion of his right under the Fifth Amendment to decline to answer questions, also on the advice of his lawyers, was made necessary by the unique circumstances of this deposition."

O'Connor went to Capitol hill on Wednesday, per the subpoena, but left without answering questions, instead pleading the 5th Amendment. In so doing, his lawyers were quick to say that O'Connor's use of that amendment to refuse to testify doesn't mean that O'Connor committed any crime.