Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre appeared Friday before the House Oversight Committee for a high-profile interview on whether senior aides sought to conceal signs of mental decline in then-President Joe Biden.Jean-Pierre, Biden’s chief spokesperson from May 2022 through the end of his term, is the most prominent figure to testify so far in the inquiry.
Now a Democrat-turned-Independent, she did not speak to reporters before entering the closed-door, transcribed interview, which began at 10 a.m. and was expected to continue into the afternoon.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) is probing whether White House officials sought to conceal Biden’s mental and physical decline, and whether any executive actions were signed by autopen without the then-president’s full awareness.
“We intentionally wanted Jean-Pierre to be one of the last people we bring in,” Comer told reporters on his way to the deposition. He added that investigators were especially interested in the contents of her new book, “Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines.”
“This is a serious investigation about the legality of the use of the autopen, the excessive use of the autopen, and whether or not Joe Biden had any idea who was using the autopen and what the autopen was used to sign, with respect to legal documents,” Comer said.
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Committee investigators are focusing in particular on the clemency orders issued during Biden’s presidency — including roughly 2,500 near the end of his term that were executed with an autopen.
Biden told The New York Times he personally made every clemency decision, while his allies have dismissed the GOP-led investigation as a partisan effort, Fox News reported.
Jean-Pierre was among the aides who defended Biden after his disastrous June 2024 debate against then-candidate Donald Trump, telling reporters the following month that he was “as sharp as ever.”
But unlike other former Biden officials who have testified before the committee — many of whom remain loyal to him — Jean-Pierre had a public falling out with Biden’s circle earlier this year.
Internal White House emails reveal concern among aides and Justice Department officials about former Biden’s sweeping clemency grants in his final days in office, including uncertainty over whether Biden personally reviewed or approved the specific documents authorizing thousands of pardons and commutations.
The messages, obtained by the New York Post, show that Biden orally approved a plan on Jan. 11, 2025, to commute sentences for inmates serving time on crack cocaine charges. But three warrant documents listing roughly 2,500 recipients were not signed — by autopen — until the morning of Jan. 17, just three days before he left office.
On the evening of Jan. 16, then-White House Staff Secretary Stef Feldman told colleagues she needed confirmation that Biden had consented before she would authorize his autopen signature.
“I’m going to need email … confirming P[resident] signs off on the specific documents when they are ready,” Feldman wrote at 9:16 p.m.
Deputy White House counsel Tyeesha Dixon forwarded Feldman’s message to Michael Posada, chief of staff to the counsel’s office.
“Michael, thoughts on how to handle this? He doesn’t review the warrants,” she wrote.
Posada responded: “We will just need something … making clear that the documents accurately reflect his decision.”
The mass clemency was announced hours later, at 4:59 a.m. on Jan. 17.
Aides pointed to an earlier attestation from deputy assistant Rosa Po, who wrote that Biden had told multiple officials on Jan. 11 that he wanted to commute sentences for those with “crack-powder sentencing disparities who were determined by DOJ not to have a high likelihood of recidivism.”
It remains unclear whether Biden personally reviewed the final warrant documents before autopen signatures were affixed.
