Anita Dunn, an close advisor to former President Biden, told the the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during an interview Thursday that despite aging in office, Biden made all of his own decisions.
Dunn, the former senior adviser to the president for communications, described a “fully engaged” president who “aged physically during his time in office” but was able to “make well-informed decisions,” according to an opening statement obtained by The Hill.
“From what I experienced and observed in the White House, President Biden made all of the important decisions expected of someone serving as the president of the United States,” she told the GOP-led panel. “As is typical and necessary for that role, President Biden relied on senior advisers to execute his priorities and manage the day-to-day operations that allow the White House to run effectively, but his authority and involvement in decisionmaking was clear.”
Dunn’s testimony comes as President Trump and allies have relentlessly questioned who was making decisions for Biden during his term, accusing the former president of not being mentally competent enough to do so and instead allowing senior aides to sign major executive documents with an autopen.
She stressed that the former president was behind the major decisionmaking, not staff.
“I did not observe White House staff making key decisions or exercising the powers of the presidency without President Biden’s knowledge or consent,” Dunn said, according to the statement. “The President made it clear that decisions rested with him, and White House staff brought issues to him for him to decide.”
She appeared for the voluntary transcribed interview Thursday for the committee’s investigation into Biden’s mental acuity and use of an autopen.
Trump has consistently brought up that he believes aides acted without Biden’s knowledge in granting presidential pardons and clemency with the use of an autopen.
Dunn appeared to try to combat that idea, saying the former president was involved with editing press statements, mapping out communications strategy and giving his direct approval to statements before they were released.
“While I observed that President Biden aged physically during his time in office, which is something that happens to every president, he remained throughout my interactions with him fully engaged and clear in his directions and supervision,” she said in her testimony. “His ability to probe, to find the weakness in an argument, and to make well-informed decisions, did not change during my time in the White House.”
A spokesperson for the committee criticized Dunn’s interview, calling it “yet another example of the absurd lengths Biden loyalists will go to defend his failed presidency.”
Dunn also argued to the panel that Biden was “appropriately accessible to the press,” citing data collected by presidential communications scholar Martha Joynt Kumar that found Biden conducted 37 press conferences, 151 interviews and 679 informal question-and-answer sessions with the press.
Biden has also addressed the claims himself, telling The New York Times in an interview last month that he “made every single one of those” decisions about clemency and calling the Trump team “liars.”
Additional members of Biden’s inner circle have also spoken to the panel, including Bruce Reed, Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, who told lawmakers Biden was “fully capable.” Other former aides the panel has sought testimony from did not appear voluntarily and were subpoenaed by Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.).
Those Biden aides invoked their Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer the committee’s questions in recent depositions: Anthony Bernal, who served as chief of staff to former first lady Jill Biden; Annie Tomasini, the former deputy director of Oval Office operations; and Kevin O’Connor, the 46th president’s White House doctor.
Others, though, have appeared voluntarily and answered the panel’s questions, including former White House chief of staff Ron Klain and former President Biden aides Ashley Williams and Neera Tanden.
Other aides scheduled for voluntary transcribed interviews through September include Ian Sams, former special assistant to the president and senior adviser in the White House counsel’s office; Andrew Bates, a senior deputy press secretary; Karine Jean-Pierre, former White House press secretary; and Jeff Zients, former White House chief of staff.
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