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The Washington Post editorial board declared Thursday that Americans “deserve” to know the state of former President Joe Biden’s health while in office.
The board noted Biden’s personal physician, Kevin O’Connor, refused to disclose Biden’s health information in a House Oversight Committee hearing this week and said that members of Congress need to make sure they get to the bottom of the situation.
“Congress should thoroughly investigate whether Biden was physically and mentally capable of carrying out his duties — and not just to sate understandable public curiosity about the previous administration,” the board declared, adding, “O’Connor could probably reveal more than anyone else about how White House officials seek to control the public’s perception of a president’s fitness.”
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During the congressional hearing this week, O’Connor pleaded the Fifth Amendment multiple times regarding his tenure with the former president.
The House Oversight Committee has been investigating whether Biden’s former top aides covered up evidence of his mental and physical decline while in office, which they have denied.
The Post noted how Republicans responded to the physician’s tactic as evidence that he was engaged in a cover-up, while Democrats dismissed the hearing and called concerns about Biden’s health overblown.
The board said both sides are “getting this wrong.”
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The editorial continued, “Biden’s case is only the latest evidence that lawmakers should take on the difficult but unavoidable topic of whether to set transparency rules on presidential health. This means Democrats cannot deny that the Biden health story is important. It also means the Republicans running the probe should be more interested in getting relevant information than in embarrassing Democrats.”
The Post argued that reports of Biden forgetting the names of his top aides, using a teleprompter for “minor events,” needing cabinet meetings scripted, and not being able to work the long hours of the job all “raise legitimate concerns that Biden’s health threatened national security and continuity of government.”
“Lawmakers have a responsibility to carefully examine the matter and use their findings to consider reforms that would preserve Americans’ confidence in their leaders,” it argued.
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The board acknowledged that Biden’s doctor was in a complex situation during the hearing because he has “ethical and legal obligations to protect private patient information” and had concerns that the “Justice Department could use his testimony against him.” However, it said that he could provide testimony about whether “he ever felt pressure to sanitize his annual public reports on Biden’s health.”
Representatives for the former president did not immediately reply to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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