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Longtime democratic operative Steve Richetti appeared before House investigators on Wednesday.
Richetti recently served as President Joe Biden’s counselor for the majority of the Biden White House’s four-year term.
He is currently expected to sit with House Oversight Committee staff for a closed door transcribed interview that could last several hours.
Comer’s R-Ky. is investigating whether Biden’s top White House aides have hidden signs of the president’s mental decline.
Comer rejects Biden Doctor’s bid to pause with the cover-up probe: “Dropping all excuses”
Steve Richetti sat with the home investigators on Wednesday. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)
Richetti first began working at Biden in 2012 when he was appointed counselor for the vice president during the Obama administration. He was soon promoted to Biden’s Chief of Staff in late 2013.
Having made a living as both a lobbyist and a democratic insider, Richetti also chaired Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
However, the committee’s interest in him lies in his suspicions of his primary role in managing the White House, but the aide reportedly worked to obscure the signs of the president’s mental decline.
“As a counselor for former President Biden, you served as one of his closest advisors. According to the report, you were “part of a group of insiders who implemented strategies to minimize the age-related struggles of the president,” Comer referred to a Wall Street Journal report to Ricchetti in June.
Rep. James Commer, chairman of the House of Representatives Oversight and Accountability Committee, is leading the investigation. (AP Photo/j. Scott Apple White)
“The scope and details of that strategy cannot proceed without research. If White House staff implements a strategy that lasts for months or years to hide the status of the CEO or to carry out duties, Congress may need to consider legislative responses.”
Axios reporter Alex Thompson, who co-authored “original crime” on CNN host Jake Tupper and Biden’s cognitive decline, told PBS Program Washington Week earlier this year that Richetty is part of a small group called Biden’s “politicians.”
He also played a key role as one of the Democrats working together in collaboration with Biden’s legislative agenda, particularly then House Chairman Kevin McCarthy, to avoid a full-scale fiscal crisis over US citizen debt in early 2023.
It comes after former White House Chief Ronald Crane, another nearby former aide who appeared before investigators for a transcribed interview of him last week.
As the house probe gets hot, he says “I never worried” about Biden’s mental state before.
LR: Ian Sams, former special assistant president and senior advisor at the White House Lawyer’s office. Andrew Bates, former assistant assistant to former President and Senior Deputy Press Secretary. Former White House Press Secretary, Carine Jean Pierre; And former White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zaens is expected to sit behind closed doors with House Oversight Committee investigators. (Fox News)
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Like Crane, Richetti appears on voluntary terms.
Three of the six Biden administration officials who appeared before the House Oversight Committee did so under the subpoena. Former White House doctor Kevin O’Connor and former advisers Annie Tomasini and Anthony Bernal all granted the Fifth Amendment during the forced sit-in.
However, three spontaneously transcribed interviews that have occurred so far have lasted more than five hours. Both Democrats and Republicans are taking turns in rounds of interrogation.
Elizabeth Elkind is the main reporter of Fox News Digital’s reporting in the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen on Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow me on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to Elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
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