Former President Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis has renewed congressional scrutiny of his presidency as Republicans allege a cover-up of both his mental and physical health.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), the chairman of a Senate investigative subcommittee, will be requesting interviews related to the diagnosis, he told the Washington Examiner, as part of a new inquiry that could target Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the physician responsible for conducting his annual exam.
The letters — to focus on a “couple dozen” people close to Biden, according to Axios — will be sent as soon as Thursday as Republicans question how the diagnosis, an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer, could have been missed.
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Biden’s personal staff said the diagnosis, revealed in a Sunday statement, went undetected until last week, when he saw a doctor for worsening urinary symptoms. But the timing of the revelation, announced on the heels of a new book alleging a “cover-up” of his mental state, has furthered GOP skepticism on whether Biden was being forthright with the public, both during and after his presidency.
In the House, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the chairman of the Oversight Committee, has dusted off an earlier investigation into the apparent mental decline Biden experienced during his time in office.
In particular, Comer is focused on Biden’s use of an autopen, a mechanical signature device that Republicans claim was hijacked by White House aides.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, told the Washington Examiner he has no plans to investigate Biden’s autopen use, though several Republicans on the panel want to scrutinize the pardons and clemency he may have granted using that delegation of authority.
“I offer my prayers and support for him. I hope he gets a full recovery. But that doesn’t absolve his political allies – the people in the White House and their media allies who covered up for this,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), a Judiciary Committee Republican.
Biden’s personal office has dismissed speculation that the White House hid his cancer diagnosis from the public. A spokesperson clarified on Tuesday that Biden has not received a prostate-specific antigen test, used to detect cancer in the blood, since 2014.
At the same time, Biden’s allies have characterized the renewed focus on Biden as a callous distraction from negative headlines about Trump’s legislative agenda, including proposed reforms to Medicaid opposed by Democrats.
“Look, I think to respond to President Biden getting what is a very hard diagnosis by immediately leaping to conspiracy theories about who tested him and whether they tested him is one of the least humane and charitable responses I can imagine,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), one of Biden’s closest confidants on Capitol Hill.
The PSA test is not recommended for men over 70 due to the risk of false positives, but Republicans have alleged that doctors must have known that Biden, 82, had cancer given its severity.
The Sunday statement disclosed that it had spread “to the bone,” suggesting an advanced form of disease, while President Donald Trump, 78, received the screening bloodwork at his most recent exam.
“They obviously knew. He obviously knew,” Johnson said, citing Biden’s 2022 comment that he had cancer. “That probably was not a slip of the tongue. Probably didn’t mean to say it, but he was probably telling the truth.”
The Biden White House said at the time that Biden was referring to his skin cancer.
The renewed focus on Biden’s health is driven, in part, by the Trump administration, which last week released long-sought-after audio of the former president’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
In the interview, conducted as part of a since-dismissed investigation into his retention of classified documents, Biden struggled to remember basic information about his family and career, with the audio revealing long pauses and halting speech.
Republicans have for years accused the Democrats of a cover-up of his health, with Comer rebooting an investigation similar to the one conducted in the last Congress. In 2024, he requested an interview with O’Connor, the White House physician, and subpoenaed several aides he said were running “interference” for the president.
But unified control of government is giving the GOP near-unfettered access to documents the Biden administration had blocked.
A staffer familiar with Pardon Attorney Ed Martin’s plans previously told the Washington Examiner that he “looks forward to being in a position to facilitate congressional inquiries from inside the building and to cooperate with those inquiries, because they’re all on the same team.”
The White House is also aware of Johnson’s Senate investigation, an official said on Wednesday, but has not publicly commented on the letters.
In the last Congress, the Biden Justice Department had provided a transcript of the Hur interview, but not the audio.
Republicans are split over how aggressively to investigate Biden, with Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) urging a light touch. He said the focus on O’Connor is warranted given how closely a president’s health is monitored while he is in office.
“The president’s physician has an obligation to the American public that clearly he has violated, in my view,” Cramer said. “There is no way this is a new revelation.”
But he otherwise praised Biden’s years-long dedication to finding a “cancer moonshot” and said sympathy is the appropriate response following his diagnosis.
“It’s good politics to do that, probably, but I think even more important, it’s the humane thing to do,” Cramer said.
Trump, in particular, has suggested Biden’s cognitive abilities should be investigated thoroughly, bringing up the autopen at a Tuesday visit to the Capitol.
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“We’re going to start looking into this whole thing with who signed this legislation,” Trump said. “Who signed legislation opening our border? I don’t think he knew.”
In a Truth Social post the same day, he accused former Biden aides of “treason.”
Kaelan Deese and Naomi Lim contributed to this story.