July 8 (UPI) — Kevin O’Connor, who served as Biden’s physician during his presidency has asked to postpone his upcoming deposition before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.
O’Connor is to be questioned as part of the committee’s probe into both Biden’s mental status and his use of an autopen signing device but requested to bump the testimony to either July 28 or Aug. 4 over disagreements in regard to the questions the GOP-led commission can ask him.
NBC News reported Monday that it attained a copy of a letter from O’Connor’s lawyer, David Schertler addressed to the House Oversight Committee.
“It would be an unnecessary spectacle to require Dr. O’Connor to testify before your Committee next week without any accommodations for the well-established doctrine of doctor-patient confidentiality and to subject himself to potential criminal prosecution for contempt of Congress for doing the right thing – honoring his legal and ethical obligations to a patient,” Schertler wrote in the letter on Saturday.
The letter further stated that “We are unaware of any prior occasion on which a Congressional Committee has subpoenaed a physician to testify about the treatment of an individual patient. And the notion that a Congressional Committee would do so without any regard whatsoever for the confidentiality of the physician-patient relationship is alarming.”
NBC News received a response from a House Oversight Committee spokesperson who accused O’Connor of attempting to “stonewall” the investigation, and that he could declare that answers to particular questions were private.
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairperson Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has since threatened there will be consequences for those summoned to testify about former President Joe Biden but don’t appear as asked.
“If Biden’s inner circle fails to comply with our subpoenas, we will initiate contempt of Congress,” wrote Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., to X Monday.
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