Steve Ricchetti, former deputy chief of staff to President Joe Biden, testified behind closed doors Wednesday in the latest interview for the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the former president’s inner circle and his use of the autopen.
Ricchetti, who served closely under Biden since 2012 during the Obama administration and previously served in the Clinton administration, entered the Rayburn House Office Building at 9:41 a.m. and headed into the hearing room. He left around 6:20 p.m. and took no questions from reporters.
A source familiar told the Washington Examiner that Ricchetti was “combative and defensive” during the interview, “and often filibustered.”
Ricchetti’s appearance is notable as he has been in Biden’s inner circle and would presumably know about the president’s health and mental acuity in 2024 when his autopen signature was used to sign a wave of executive actions while the 46th president was in Washington, including pardons. While the use of an autopen is not uncommon for a president, the committee is investigating whether he had the mental awareness to authorize it.
Heading into the interview, Ricchetti told Fox News reporter Chad Pergram he wasn’t going to say anything on the way in.
“I’m just gonna go in and- just go in and give an interview,” Ricchetti said walking past reporters.
When asked if Biden had been “up for the job” of president, Ricchetti said, “Of course he was.”
BIDEN AUTOPEN USE IN DC WAS MORE WIDESPREAD THAN PREVIOUSLY KNOWN
Biden said he made “every” final decision in an interview with the New York Times, but emails revealed he did not closely review every clemency case and delegated his aides to handle the process.
“The cover up isn’t holding,” House Oversight Committee GOP posted ahead of the hearing.
Ricchetti worked in the office of the vice president during the Obama administration, as chairman of the Biden campaign, and as a top aide to Biden during his single term as president. He also worked as a lobbyist.
The source familiar stated that Ricchetti told the committee on Wednesday that he believed Biden had the ability to be president and performed in that capacity “every day.”
However, “Mr. Ricchetti admitted that they all knew President Biden’s age was an issue and were dealing with it as a political matter.”
Ricchetti was not the only member of his family to serve in the Biden administration. His son, Daniel Ricchetti, served as a senior adviser at the State Department and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before that. His daughter, Shannon Ricchetti, was a deputy associate director of the Office of the Social Secretary at the White House. And his other son, J.J. Ricchetti, served in the Treasury Department as a special assistant in the Office of Legislative Affairs after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania.
He is the first member of the so-called “Politburo” to testify this week before the House Oversight Committee, with another member of Biden’s inner circle, Mike Donilon, set to appear for an interview on Thursday. Ricchetti, Donilon, and policy wonk Bruce Reed were Biden’s closest advisers and essentially ran the White House, according to the authors of the book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.
Previously, two former Biden aides, Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini, and his physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, took the Fifth Amendment when they appeared for their depositions in recent weeks after being subpoenaed by the committee. Former aides Neera Tanden, Ashley Williams, and Ron Klain have participated in the transcribed interviews, but those transcripts have not yet been made public.
Ricchetti testified that Biden made “common mistakes” but the frequency of those mistakes did not increase after he was vice president. The source said this contradicted testimony from Klain, “who admitted that President Biden’s memory got worse over time.”
President Donald 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.
Transcribed interviews are typically conducted over several hours by the majority and minority committee staff. The slated interviews are set to take place through September.
The source familiar said Democrats asked few questions during Ricchetti’s testimony and did not use their full allotted time.
“During the transcribed interview, Democrats were more concerned whether President Trump had a colonoscopy than who was actually calling the shots at the Biden White House,” the source familiar stated.
HOUSE MEMBERS FACE EPSTEIN HEAT AS THEY RETURN HOME FOR AUGUST RECESS
Along with the Biden investigation, the committee has been busy, as three motions have passed to issue subpoenas to get more information involving the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The committee already subpoenaed Epstein’s associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, for her deposition set to take place on Aug. 11, in Florida, though the inmate has a list of conditions before her scheduled prison interview.
The transcripts from the closed-door interviews are slated to be made public once all the interviews have concluded, but footage of those who invoked their Fifth Amendment rights was released the evening after they concluded.
Mackenzie Thomas contributed to this report.
