OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
3:05 PM – Friday, September 5, 2025
The House Oversight Committee is intensifying its investigation into an alleged cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s declining health through the use of the autopen, a mechanical signature device for official documents.
The latest individual to appear before the committee for questioning is ex-White House spokesman Andrew Bates, who arrived voluntarily on Capitol Hill Friday morning. He did not speak to reporters on his way into the closed-door interview.
He is the 11th former Biden official to attend the Oversight Committee’s probe.
Bates served on the Biden administration’s communications team throughout the former president’s four years in office, moving up from deputy to senior deputy press secretary by the end of Biden’s term in January.
“I was proud to support Joe Biden as president because we believe in the same values. In the White House, it was universally understood that Joe Biden was in charge. That is completely consistent with my personal experience with the president,” Bates said in his opening statement.
Bates spent a lot of time attacking President Donald Trump in front of the committee.
“Now someone else with a very different character is in charge. Every Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to add $3.4 trillion to the national debt in tax welfare for the rich. Now the committee is spending taxpayer dollars investigating Joe Biden – an honorable man under whom the economy performed far better than it is today – while turning a blind eye to corruption under Donald Trump,” he stated.
The committee called Bates out for taking part in the alleged Biden cover-up.
“Andrew Bates was part of the Biden cognitive decline cover-up and he’s delusional. His so-called opening statement—leaked in the middle of his transcribed interview and not even read at the time—peddled the same fantasy he’s been trying to sell the American people. The public has rejected Bates’ spin and witnessed President Biden’s decline with their own eyes,” a House Oversight Committee spokesperson said in a statement. “And just this week, new records revealed that President Biden neither approved—nor may have even been consulted on—thousands of pardons. This is a historic scandal with massive repercussions.”
In the final months of Biden’s presidency, thousands of criminals were granted clemency, using the autopen for the president’s signature. Bates denied accusations that Biden’s authority was undermined by his team, and that he was unaware of decisions made in the last months of his term, even though the National Archives could not find contemporaneous evidence that Biden attended the last four meetings regarding presidential acts of clemency.
“In the White House, it was universally understood that Joe Biden was in charge. That is completely consistent with my personal experience with the president,” Bates insisted.
Former senior advisor and spokesman Ian Sams appeared before the committee last month for the investigation, revealing that he only spoke to the former president twice in four years, although he made frequent announcements on Biden’s behalf.
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer (R-Tenn.) has also floated the idea of bringing former Vice President Kamala Harris before the committee, as well, saying that “it would be helpful to hear from” her.
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