Former White House chief of staff Jeff Zients arrived on Capitol Hill Thursday for a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee as part of the panel’s investigation into whether Biden administration aides concealed the president’s mental decline or executed official acts on his behalf without consent.
Zients did not respond to shouted questions from reporters upon entering the committee’s secure interview room. Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said, “We believe Zients is the guy that was potentially making a lot of decisions down the stretch and had a lot of responsibility with respect to the unauthorized use of the autopen.”
The interview follows months of scrutiny by Comer, who, in a June 27 letter to Zients, accused senior White House officials of possibly “usurping authority” from then-President Joe Biden and hiding signs of his “rapidly worsening mental and physical faculties.”
“The Committee seeks to understand who made key decisions and exercised the powers of the executive branch during the previous administration, possibly without former President Biden’s consent,” Comer wrote in the letter. “The Committee requests your testimony to evaluate your eye-witness account of former President Biden’s decline.”
Zients is the last of 14 total former Biden aides and staffers interviewed in the sweeping inquiry. Comer said Sunday he believed Zients to be the most important interview of the investigation to date, saying “a lot of things point to him as being one of the chief instigators of many of the pardons, including the pardon of Dr. Fauci. So we want to know what the process was.”
Zients served as Biden’s chief of staff from early 2023 through the end of his term, a period that included his widely criticized presidential debate performance against then-candidate President Donald Trump. In the days after that event, Axios reported that Zients convened a full-staff call to urge aides to rally behind the president and move past what he called “one night.”
“We all know he is a great president,” Zients reportedly told staff on the July 3 call.
The committee cited that call in its letter, arguing Zients’s involvement could be evidence of a coordinated strategy to downplay or obscure Biden’s condition inside the White House. Axios also reported that many staff officials were frustrated by vague talking points from leadership and had little explanation of what occurred during the debate.
“The scope of your responsibilities — both official and otherwise — and personal interactions within the Oval Office cannot go without investigation,” Comer wrote. “If White House staff carried out a strategy lasting months or even years to hide the chief executive’s condition — or to perform his duties —Congress may need to consider a legislative response.”
Zients appeared voluntarily after committee staff requested confirmation or an alternative date in lieu of a subpoena. His interview had initially been scheduled for Sept. 3 but was postponed following a request from the White House.
As part of the sweeping investigation, the Oversight panel is also investigating the Biden White House’s use of the autopen, a mechanical signing device used by past administrations but now under renewed scrutiny by Republicans who question whether Biden’s signature was applied to bills or legal orders without his awareness.
While using the autopen is technically legal, according to a 2005 DOJ memorandum, Republicans are probing whether there is any evidence to show the president assented to his signature being placed on certain documents or fully understood how the autopen was being used in his name.
Biden has pushed back against any suggestion that his staff executed core presidential duties on his behalf, saying he was aware of how the autopen was being used.
President Donald Trump has called Biden’s use of the autopen to sign various executive orders and grant clemency to thousands of inmates “one of the biggest” political scandals in contemporary times.
WHITE HOUSE ACCUSES BIDEN STAFFER OF IMPERSONATING CHIEF OF STAFF IN AUTOPEN INVESTIGATION
The committee has already interviewed other senior Biden officials, including former Chief of Staff Ron Klain and, most recently, former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Comer has said the panel will issue a final report with potential legislative recommendations related to presidential succession, transparency, and use of the 25th Amendment.