Former President Biden’s former White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, exercised his Fifth Amendment rights on Wednesday as he refused to cooperate in the House Oversight Committee’s probe into Biden’s mental acuity while in office.
“On the advice of his legal counsel, Dr. O’Connor refused to answer questions that invaded the well-established legal privilege that protects confidential matters between physicians and their patients,” a statement from O’Connor’s attorneys reads, Politico reported.
O’Connor also asserted his Fifth Amendment right to decline to answer questions, per his lawyers’ advice.
O’Connor’s attorneys’ statement also cited President Trump’s invocation of his Fifth Amendment right before his deposition with New York State Attorney General Letitia James (D), quoting the president’s suggestion that only “an absolute fool” would refuse to take the Fifth.
The former White House physician received a subpoena from House Oversight Committee last month to testify in its investigation.
O’Connor’s lawyer sent a letter Saturday to the committee asking that his client’s testimony be postponed to either the last week of July or the first week of August “to reach an accommodation that will protect the very substantial privilege and confidentiality interests of Dr. O’Connor and former President Biden.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in his subpoena of O’Connor in June that physician-patient privilege claims under the American Medical Association’s code of ethics “lack merit” because that code is not part of federal law.Â
He also argued the committee’s subpoena follows AMA’s requirement that physicians must share a patient’s medical information if “legally compelled to disclose the information” or “ordered to do so by legally constituted authority.”
The Trump administration on Tuesday evening waived executive privilege for O’Connor to testify before the House committee.
