Ron Klain, who was chief of staff to former President Joe Biden until 2023, testified for hours behind closed doors Thursday as part of the latest interview for the House Oversight Committee‘s investigation into Biden’s inner circle and his use of an autopen.
Klain entered a House office building at 9:46 a.m. and did not take any questions from reporters, including why Biden was taking Ambien ahead of his 2024 presidential debate against Donald Trump, as Hunter Biden revealed in a recent interview. Klain stayed on Capitol Hill for six hours, including a 45-minute lunch break, and answered questions posed by committee staff until 3:50 p.m. He declined to comment as he exited the interview room.
Klain told the committee he believed Biden was fit to serve but acknowledged he appeared tired and sick before the debate, adding that he does not have knowledge of him taking Ambien, according to a source familiar with the testimony. Klain acknowledged Biden had lost some energy and his memory had gotten worse. However, the source said Klain did not believe Biden was too old to run for president.
By 2024, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told Klain they thought Biden was not politically viable, Klain told the committee, according to the source.
“Americans want to know was Joe Biden, in fact, aware of what the autopen was being used to sign his name on, or was, in fact, some family members or high-level officials in the Biden administration just acting unilaterally as President of the United States and using the autopen,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said.
Before working in the Biden administration, Klain had a long history in government service. He worked in the Senate as chief counsel of the Judiciary Committee and staff director of the Democratic Leadership Committee. He was also the associate counsel for judicial selection under former President Bill Clinton, chief of staff to former Vice President Al Gore, chief of staff and counselor to the U.S. attorney general, and chief of staff to then-Vice President Biden. Klain is the chief legal officer at Airbnb and got his law degree from Harvard.
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He is the first witness to appear this week in the autopen investigation into whether Biden was aware that government documents, including pardons, were marked with his automatic signature. Two former Biden aides, Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini, and his physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, pleaded the Fifth when they appeared for their depositions in recent weeks after being subpoenaed. Two former aides, Neera Tanden and Ashley Williams, have participated in the transcribed interviews, but those transcripts have not been made public.
“I just want to emphasize that it was credible, humble, nonconfrontational,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said of the interview. “He answered every question comprehensively, didn’t avoid a single question.”
The committee has expanded the investigation since the release of Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s book, Original Sin. Comer has questioned the former president’s use of the autopen for pardons and executive orders and whether his aides covered up his alleged health decline. The book says Klain spoke with other staff members about whether the former president should run again, but the conversations did not go anywhere.
“He delegated to his staff to determine who to pardon,” Comer said of Biden. “That’s not how the pardon process works.”
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Trump waived executive privilege last month for all of the former aides in the investigation. Executive privilege allows the witness to withhold information from Congress to protect the integrity of the executive branch.
The transcripts from the closed-door interviews are slated to be made public. Comer told the Washington Examiner last month that no interviews will be released before all of them have concluded, but footage of those who invoked their Fifth Amendment rights was released the evening after they concluded. Transcribed interviews are typically conducted by the majority and minority committee staff over several hours. The slated interviews are set to take place through September.
