One of Joe Biden’s former high aides pushed back Friday on concerns about the former president’s health in a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee, an individual accustomed to the matter instructed NCS.
Andrew Bates, who had served as deputy assistant to the president and senior deputy press secretary, instructed the Republican-led panel that he believed Biden may have gained reelection, however finally agreed with the former president’s resolution to drop out of the race after assessing polling information and the political injury from Biden’s disastrous debate efficiency, the supply stated.
Bates’ testimony to the committee comes because the panel has interviewed a number of top aides from the Biden White House in latest months as a part of its investigation into the former president’s cognitive decline and attainable efforts to conceal it from the general public.
Another supply instructed NCS that Bates stated after he had time to course of the president’s resolution and a flip in public polling through the closing week of his candidacy, he agreed Biden had made the precise resolution to withdraw.
Bates acknowledged that he interacted with Biden in particular person a bit of over as soon as a month and engaged with greater than 20 individuals to talk about Biden’s functioning in order to reply to press questions about the former president’s health, that supply added.
In his opening assertion obtained by NCS, Bates defended Biden, whereas criticizing Republicans for not investigating potential conflicts of curiosity in the Trump administration.
“In the White House, it was universally understood that Joe Biden was in charge. That is completely consistent with my personal experience with the president,” Bates stated.