Biden’s Physician Takes the 5th, Won’t Testify in Probe Into Former President’s Mental Health
“[Kevin] O’Connor Wednesday morning asserted doctor-patient privilege and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.”
Politico reported that Kevin O’Connor, the doctor who served as former President Joe Biden’s physician, invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked to testify about Biden’s mental health.
The House Oversight Committee has started an investigation into Biden’s mental abilities during his presidency, as information has leaked since he left office.
O’Connor Wednesday morning asserted doctor-patient privilege and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to a statement from his attorneys. He had repeatedly argued his duties as a doctor complicated his ability to testify under oath about his patient, preventing him from sharing some sensitive information.
“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,” the statement read. “His assertion of his right under the Fifth Amendment to decline to answer questions, also on the advice of his lawyers, was made necessary by the unique circumstances of this deposition.
The statement also cited President Donald Trump’s own invocation of his Fifth Amendment right before his deposition with New York State Attorney General Letitia James, quoting Trump’s suggestion that only “an absolute fool” would refuse to take the Fifth.
I don’t like to jump to conclusions when people invoke the Fifth because I know I would to save myself from possible charges and whatnot.
Invoking the Fifth does not prove or disprove anything. Please do not forget that.
The term “doctor-patient privilege” is not in HIPAA. Instead, HIPAA protects patient confidentiality and privacy. HIPAA and privilege are separate in the law.
State laws govern the doctor-patient privilege. Washington, DC, has a doctor-patient privilege law that prohibits a physician from releasing information gathered in a professional relationship unless the patient gives consent for its release.
I’m not sure how it applies to this investigation, though. Rule 501 under the Federal Rules of Evidence allows common law principles, and in civil cases, state law applies to them.
It’s possible Attorney General Pam Bondi could grant O’Connor immunity, but the doctor-patient privilege scenario still exists. It’s a slippery slope, no matter your thoughts on Biden and the mess within his White House.
I honestly don’t know how O’Connor can get around it without breaking doctor-patient privilege, which exists for a president.
A president has the right to medical privacy like everyone else, but the president is also not an ordinary citizen.
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Comments
I would say it’s time for a special counsel.
Or Impeachment…on the charge of Conspiracy to Evade the 25th Amendment. The Dems have now established it’s completely appropriate to Impeach a former president. The Court has ceded tremendous authority to Congress when pursuing an Impeachment inquiry. There was almost nothing that was off-limits to them when they were Impeaching Trump…both times.
How was the 25th evaded? Neither the vice president nor any cabinet member, let alone a majority, were interested in invoking it, so there was nothing to evade.
The 25th does not impose any duty on anyone to do anything. It offers an option for removing a president who does not object to his removal but is unable to resign.
It also offers an alternative way of removing a president who does object, which is more difficult than impeachment, but carries no shame; this is for when Congress loves the president and doesn’t want to accuse him of wrongdoing, but sees that he has to go. If it doesn’t mind shaming him, impeachment is easier.
In neither case is there any obligation to act, no matter how incompetent he may be, so I don’t see how failing to do so can be the basis for any kind of impeachment.
You heard of dirty cop? Well this is dirty doc!
This reminds me of the great line from Robert Preston in S.O.B:
He is taking a very principled stand on the doctor-vegetable privilege.
Our recent “Weekend at Bernie’s” admin was not the first admin to hide The Big Guy’s medical condition – after a stroke Wilson’s wife Edith ran the WH pretending her orders were his orders – FDR’s weak health was a State Secret, as was JFK’s, There is still speculation about Reagan’s already having alzheimer’s in his 2nd term, but even CNN concluded theirs no solid basis for such a claim.
The unusual thing about the Biden situation is the extent of his cognitive decline in office – the worst since Wilson’s stroke – Reagan could still usually hold an intelligent conversation or give a coherent speech even when diagnosed in 1994 after leaving office.
Things Biden had difficulty doing even when well rested, well medicated, carefully coached, and asked to do no more than fake a realtime conversation by reading his answers from a prepared script.
I can understand the reluctance of a physician to discuss a patient’s condition without permission – but it seems to me that it’s a bit murky how much that’s a license to lie so as to cover up what the actual condition is. I’m doubt a doc pretending to the (say) family that (say) Dad has a clean bill of health because Dad wants it kept private is in the same league as going before the press to issue a clean bill of health for a govt office holder – not when the health problem impacts his ability to do the job. It’s more like a doc testifying a legally blind person can still see well enuf to retain his license. When he can’t. Or that a surgeon who’s his patient can still safely perform fine surgical procedures. When he can’t.
A lot of “privileged info” you lose the privacy privilege once you start talking about it – you can’t break privilege yet still retain it. And if the doc testified UNDER OATH that Biden was fully competent yet KNEW he wasn’t he’s imho no more immune to a perjury charge than a mafia soldier lying under oath.
We all know Biden was not in charge. No doubt the doctor was reporting to and taking orders from a third party, therefore the confidentiality issue is ___________ (fill in the blank).
The doctor could have said “I cannot comment on the health of the President,” from day one. He clearly lied about what was evident to anyone with eyes, furthering the conspiracy to suborn the office of the President by a cabal of villains who inserted their own agenda. I’d say he’s party to treason against the Constitution of the US.
The constitution says there’s no such thing as “treason” against it.
“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.”
Exactly. There is no such thing as treason against the constitution. (At least in the legal sense of the term. As the Supreme Court has recognized, the English word “traitor” can mean one who is guilty of the crime of treason, but it can also mean anyone who has betrayed someone or something, in some way. So calling someone a “traitor” is not an accusation that they have committed legal treason against the United States, as defined in the constitution.)
Do you ever get tired of dancing in the head of a pin trying to get by on semantics?
You would need to be braindead to appoint KBJ anyhow
Or evil.
I’m afraid if Joe were asked to waive his privilege, he’d just start flapping his hand around.
LOL. This does not apply to the President in office. Much the same way that the President cannot be sued while in office, his medical condition is part of the Presidency, itself, not his personal information to keep hidden (not that Traitor Joe’s dementia was hidden from anyone).
For O’Connor and his scumbag lawyers to even offer up an excuse like this is criminal and an offense to the intellect.
O’Connor is just another low-IQ criminal inhabiting the Biden Crime Family orbit, stealing from the public to sustain his useless existence.
Honestly, O’Connor should get life in prison at hard labor just for that haircut of his.
That’s utter bullshit. The president has all the same rights and privileges as anyone else.
Smart doctor. By claiming Doctor/Patient confidentiality and 5A protections, there’s almost no way this particular ball of worms is going to ooze into prison time. Even if the DOJ gives him full and unconditional immunity, he still has HIPA to hide behind.
HIPAA doesn’t apply to the Presidency. National security trumps any privacy of the office holder.
Bullshit. You’re just making shit up.
Since you do it all the time …
From Ace of Spades:”There is no physician-patient confidentiality here because Congress intended to ask questions about O’Connor’s publicly-stated (perjured) reports on Biden’s supposed perfect health.
There is no privilege once you voluntarily make something public. Either it’s private or it’s public, and O’Connor made it public.”
I thought you were referencing Lemmy
And his deception was notorious.
He conspired to compromise the safety of the country. He and that now fired pediatrician would make a fine couple. I don’t know how the Biden Crime Family would deal with this, but he knows that ASD… adult sudden death… is real over at the Clinton Foundation.
dr.jill was consulted and said that her husband has always been this way and therefore is not guilty of anything at anytime
“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,”
Is that anything like Trump’s tax returns?
Dr-patient is one thing. Pleading the 5th so as to not incriminate himself raises the question exactly what he is afraid of incriminating himself for? Ask him.
They can’t ask him that, because the answer might incriminate him. And, as he pointed out, Trump himself said you’d have to be an idiot not to invoke the fifth, if you can.
The doctor made public statements about the president’s health. He wasn’t just the president’s doctor. He acted in the capacity of a public servant reporting on the president’s condition.
Congress and the public have a strong interest – strong enough (I think) to override confidentiality – in learning whether he was being truthful.
Lying to the public is not a crime. The 5th doesn’t apply. Make him answer!
Someone told this Doc to lie. Someone wanted everything to appear normal. Someone was exercising power behind the scenes. If Biden wasn’t authorizing the auto-pen, who was? You give the Doc immunity after he tells who gave him the order. Then his proffer is accepted. You flip him to get who gave the order. The Congress and DOJ then can begin to unravel the conspiracy. If it’s proven then people can be held accountable. And jail time administered. Remember Watergate. People went to jail over the coverup.
The doctor patient thing does not apply if a crime has been committed.
Exactly correct. In fact, for a whole litany of crime-types, not only does doctor-patient confidentiality NOT apply, but the doctor may be legally obligated (under penalty of law) to report that criminal activity. A lot of people mistakenly believe that doctor-patient confidentiality is as robust as lawyer/client or even priest/confessor. It isn’t.
Not when it impinges on national security.
And “The Presidency” has no right to privacy. Yes .. what TV shows the President watches is private information – because it has nothing to do with the Presidency, but The Office of the President has no right to privacy beyond what national security and the correct operation of the government require.
While the legal system cannot make inferences from the Doctors 5th Amendment claim, that restriction doesn’t apply to individuals or the political system. We all know what the Doctor’s claim means. Only idiots don’t think he is guilty of something.
The Doctor lied when he stated publicly that Biden was okay, in spite of knowing he was an ambulatory cauliflower. It was a positive, affirmative statement he was not compelled to make.
Lying to an individual’s employer (in this case the American people) to affirm that person is fit for duty is not part of nor is it covered by doctor/patient confidentiality. It is an unambiguous ethical violation.
Doctor/patient privacy is a weak claim here, if not completely moot, and won’t stand up to scrutiny.
Of course he has the right that every criminal has to not self-incriminate, but I imagine there will be more fall-out from this.
I assume that that’s the end of that!. No surprise.
There is it much validity to invoking the fifth unless you believe you’re in some sort of criminal Jeopardy. Does he have reason to believe he’s in Criminal jeopardy?
Maybe. Or maybe he’s just saying it because you can’t prove otherwise, and as Trump said you’d have to be an idiot not to.
Healthcare professionals are mandated reporters of any abuse to members of a vulnerable population. Elders are consider a vulnerable population. He was therefore obligated to report Dr, Jill’s abuse.
We have a pretty clear idea that Biden was highly medicated before press conferences, photo ops and the like. Probably it was the doctor who prescribed and possibly administered the drugs.
In other words, the doctor was probably complicit in the abuse.
IMO the doctor was possibly complicit in a conspiracy to substitute “X” for Biden in running the government. I am less sure about “abuse” given the taxpayer-funded life style in the White House and everywhere else. Note that I am somewhat unique in not thinking that Biden has traditional demnetia, but possibly the long term consequences of two brain surgeries in 1988 for aneurysms, one of which had burst.
Going after Biden personally should no longer be necessary. This is all we need.
All autopen signings should be reviewed and hopefully those actions nullified. 3 years worth of Biden, uninstalled.
To do that you would have to prove for each individual action that the president was not competent at that moment. Because clearly he did have good days, or at least good hours.
Good? No. Barely meeting the criteria for viability, perhaps.
Since the good doctor commented on Biden’s health publicly, it seems to me that there is an issue of waiver of the doctor-patient privilege. I don’t know if the waiver is limited. But there is something there.
In his testimony, the doctor was asked whether anyone told him to lie about Biden’s health. I can’t see how the answer to that question is covered by a doctor-patient privilege unless it was Biden (or maybe, maybe Jill) who made the request. If it was any third party not involved with care, then there is no privilege. The 5th could obviously be invoked here.
To the extent Doc O’ released info on a specific condition of the President, he had said President’s consent to do so. At that point, his duty of candor to report honestly kicks in. If he was dishonest about it, the door is now open to explore his statements, as privilege has been waived. And, as on commenter noted, if it’s a question of ethics rather than a potential crime at issue, the 5th Amd in crimination is not in play. We’ll see how it plays out for the Doc.
“Doctor, in reference to the 2023 and 2024 summaries of the President’s physical exam, you stated he was ‘fit for duty’.. Were cognitive tests included in your evaluation of fitness?”
There’s the reason for invoking the Fifth, because cognitive tests were not mentioned in any summary. Confidentiality is not breached in stating whether a cognitive test was a determinant as the summaries stated other specific protocols and tests conducted. The results of a cognitive test can stay private and protected, but that would raise a ton of suspicion.
Answering yes to evaluating a cognitive test implies there was nothing wrong with Biden’s mental state and that would open the doctor to defend the indefensible. A perfect storm for a perjury trap.
Answering no, on the other hand, would raise one killer question: what would it take to order a cognitive test for a president.
No surprise, therefore, to keep his mouth shut.