By Ted Barrett

(CNN) — Another senior aide to former President Joe Biden testified Thursday before the House Oversight Committee as part of the GOP-led panel’s investigation into what it charges was a “cover-up” of Biden’s mental decline.

House Oversight Chair James Comer said Ian Sams, who served as a special assistant to the president and senior adviser in the White House Counsel’s Office and later worked for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, testified to the committee that he had few direct contacts with Biden – which Comer said raised questions about his role as a spokesman who defended Biden publicly.

In 2024, for example, Sams appeared on MSNBC to defend the president in the wake of a New York Times report that Biden appeared “increasingly appeared confused or listless” behind closed doors.

“When I deal with him, he’s sharp. He’s asking tough questions,” Sams said at the time.

“He communicated with Joe Biden two times. He saw Joe Biden, talked to Joe Biden two times the entire stint as White House spokesperson. But yet he would every day tweet and issue statements from the podium of the White House, you know, combating everything that we were doing in the Oversight Committee with respect to the investigation,” Comer said.

Sams departed without commenting to reporters and did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Comer cast the testimony as damaging to Biden, alleging that it suggested an effort to keep Biden away even from key aides.

“So it raises serious concerns and serious questions about who was calling shots in the White House. If the White House spokesperson is being shielded from the President of the United States, who was operating the Oval Office?” he said.

Comer’s committee has said it is also investigating the “potentially unauthorized issuance of sweeping pardons and other executive actions” by aides.

Comer said it was “astonishing” that a person with Sams’s role would have only met with Biden in-person twice. He acknowledged in response to questions from CNN that Sams was not the top White House spokesperson. The “main spokesperson,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, will be testifying “very soon,” he said.

Comer said Sams described Biden as mentally sharp in his two interactions with him – though he cast that as unsurprising.

“Of course he did,” Comer said. “He had to absolutely because he said that, you know, for hours and hours and hours of press conferences and TV interviews on MSNBC and CNN.”

Sams is the latest of many former Biden aides to testify as part of the committee’s investigation.

Several witnesses, including Biden’s White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, were subpoenaed and then invoked their Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions.

Other aides have fiercely defended Biden.

Anita Dunn, the former senior adviser to the president for communications, said in her opening statement obtained by CNN, “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.”

She added: “I did not observe White House staff making key decisions or exercising the powers of the presidency without President Biden’s knowledge or consent.”

Steve Ricchetti, a former Biden counselor, said he was cooperating with the inquiry “because I believe it is important to forcefully rebut this false narrative about the Biden presidency and our role in it,” in a statement obtained by CNN and delivered to the committee as part of his closed-door testimony.

“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,” Ricchetti said.

CNN reported last month that Ron Klain, who had served as chief of staff to Biden, told the committee that former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had raised concerns to him about Biden’s political chances as he sought reelection.

CNN’s Annie Grayer contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
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