Questions about the decision-making process in the final years of Joe Biden’s presidency intensified this week, as former White House spokesman Ian Sams appeared before the House Oversight Committee for a closed-door interview. Sams, who served as a special assistant to the president and senior adviser in the White House Counsel’s Office from mid-2022 to August 2024, testified that he met face-to-face with President Biden only twice during his entire tenure. The revelation, which was confirmed by multiple sources and highlighted by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), has fueled Republican suspicions that key aides—not Biden himself—were operating the levers of power in the White House during a period marked by growing concerns over the president’s mental and physical health.
According to CNN and the Washington Examiner, Sams’s testimony is part of a broader GOP-led investigation into what committee members describe as a potential “cover-up” of Biden’s cognitive decline. The probe has zeroed in on the use of the autopen—a mechanical device that replicates the president’s signature—alleging that it may have been deployed by aides to authorize significant executive actions and mass pardons without Biden’s direct consent. While the autopen has been used by past presidents for routine correspondence, the committee is investigating whether its use during Biden’s final months in office crossed constitutional lines.
In a statement to reporters, Chairman Comer described Sams’s appearance as “one of the most shocking” sit-downs yet, arguing that it “contradicts everything that the former Biden people are saying with respect to the president’s mental fitness.” Comer pointed out that, aside from the two in-person meetings, Sams had only joined one virtual meeting and had a single phone call with Biden. “If the White House spokesperson was being shielded from the president of the United States, who was operating the Oval Office?” Comer asked, echoing the concerns of many Republican lawmakers.
The investigation has already drawn in a host of high-level Biden aides, including Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, Bruce Reed, Ron Klain, and Annie Tomasini, all of whom have been interviewed by the committee. According to reporting by the New York Post, Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff, stated in a July 24, 2025 interview that even the president’s own national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, did not see Biden as “politically viable” during his final year in office. Bruce Reed, another senior adviser, attributed Biden’s widely criticized debate performance against Donald Trump in June 2024 to a lingering childhood stutter, while Donilon and Ricchetti offered more positive assessments of Biden’s cognitive abilities.
Ricchetti, in an opening statement obtained by CNN, insisted, “At all times during his presidency, I believed that President Biden was fully capable of exercising his Presidential duties and responsibilities, and that he did so.” Anita Dunn, a former senior adviser for communications, echoed this sentiment, stating, “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.” Dunn explicitly denied that White House staff made key decisions or exercised presidential powers without Biden’s knowledge or consent.
Despite these defenses, Comer and his Republican colleagues have pressed forward, citing testimony and internal emails that suggest a small group of senior aides—sometimes referred to as a “politburo”—were making critical decisions. Journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, in their book on the Biden White House, reported that figures such as Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, Bruce Reed, First Lady Jill Biden, and First Son Hunter Biden formed a core group responsible for major choices, with others like Ron Klain and Annie Tomasini occasionally joining the inner circle.
Sams’s limited direct contact with Biden was corroborated by colleagues, who noted that his office was located in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building rather than the West Wing, and that he mostly interacted with intermediaries such as communications chief Anita Dunn and White House counsels Stuart Delery and Ed Siskel. One former Biden staffer told the New York Post, “He [Sams] had zero contact with him [Biden],” adding that the two in-person meetings Sams described were “more than I thought.” Another observed that Sams appeared to get his “marching orders” from Dunn rather than the president himself.
The committee’s scrutiny extends to the use of the autopen for executive actions, particularly mass pardons and commutations issued during Biden’s final days in office. According to the Washington Examiner, internal Justice Department emails revealed that former Associate Deputy Attorney Bradley Weinsheimer warned the White House that vague language in Biden’s mass commutations could result in the release of violent felons, contradicting public claims that only “nonviolent drug offenders” were covered. Despite these warnings, the clemency sweep proceeded, and Biden later confirmed in a phone interview with the New York Times that he hand-signed only one pardon in December 2024—for his son, Hunter Biden—while defending the use of the autopen for the rest due to the sheer volume of warrants.
Republican Senator Josh Hawley has demanded records showing that Biden personally authorized each use of the autopen, warning that the committee should “subpoena those documents, and we should find out the truth of who was really running the White House.” Former President Donald Trump has gone even further, describing the situation as “one of the biggest scandals that we’ve had in 50-100 years” and comparing it to Watergate.
Not all testimony has supported the narrative of a staff-driven presidency. Steve Ricchetti, in a statement to the committee obtained by CNN, said, “There was no nefarious conspiracy of any kind among the president’s senior staff, and there was certainly no conspiracy to hide the president’s mental condition from the American people.” Dunn, likewise, stated under oath that she “did not observe White House staff making key decisions or exercising the powers of the presidency without President Biden’s knowledge or consent.”
Still, the investigation continues, with more aides scheduled to testify in the coming weeks. Andrew Bates, former deputy assistant to the president and senior deputy press secretary, is set to appear on September 5, followed by former press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on September 12 and former chief of staff Jeff Zients on September 18. Zients, according to a July 2025 report in the New York Times, was shown in emails to have approved late pardons that Biden was not fully aware of, leading to a rebuke from senior Department of Justice officials.
Sams himself reportedly expressed surprise at Biden’s decision to pardon Hunter Biden following his conviction on tax and gun crimes, as well as at the pre-emptive clemency extended to other Biden family members and their spouses who were not under indictment. As the committee’s investigation presses on, the central questions remain: Who was truly making the decisions in the Biden White House, and to what extent was the president himself in command during his final years?
With the testimony of key aides and the release of internal communications, the coming weeks are likely to provide further clarity—or raise even more questions—about the inner workings of the Biden administration during a tumultuous period in American political history.
