Ex-Biden aide Andrew Bates arrives for closed-door grilling in House autopen probe

Ex-White House spokesman Andrew Bates is on Capitol Hill Friday morning as the House Oversight Committee continues its probe into allegations of a cover-up by former President Joe Biden's inner circle.

He did not speak to reporters on his way into his closed-door interview, which is set for 10 a.m. and expected to last into the afternoon.

Bates was a core member of Biden's communications team for nearly his entire four-year term, rising from deputy to senior deputy press secretary by the time the Democratic leader left office in January 2025.

He's the 11th former Biden official to appear for the House Oversight Committee's probe and the ninth to do so voluntarily.

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Bates told House Oversight Committee investigators in an opening statement obtained by Fox News Digital, "I was proud to support Joe Biden as president because we believe in the same values. 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."

He also spent much of his statement taking aim at President Donald Trump.

"Now someone else with a very different character is in charge. Every Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to add $3.4 trillion to the national debt in tax welfare for the rich. Now the committee is spending taxpayer dollars investigating Joe Biden - an honorable man under whom the economy performed far better than it is today - while turning a blind eye to corruption under Donald Trump."

Three ex-Biden aides - Anthony Bernal, Annie Tomasini and ex-White House physician Kevin O'Connor - were compelled to appear via congressional subpoena.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., has been investigating whether Biden's senior aides covered up signs of mental decline in the former president, and whether any executive decisions were signed off on via autopen without the then-leader's full awareness.

They're looking in particular at the litany of clemency orders that Biden signed in the latter half of his term.

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"You served as Senior Deputy Press Secretary in the White House during former President Joe Biden's Administration. You also served in communications roles during the 2020 Biden campaign and during the Obama-Biden Administration. Other than Karine Jean-Pierre, you were one of the most prominent public-facing defenders of former President Biden's mental acuity," Comer wrote to Bates in late June.

"The scope of your responsibilities-both official and otherwise-and personal interactions within the Oval Office cannot go without investigation, given the mounting evidence that President Biden was incapacitated for much, if not all, of his single term," the letter continued.

Democrats, by contrast, have painted the investigation as an unnecessary look backwards.

Comer had previously described the Democratic side's questioning of Biden witnesses as trivial, accusing them of spending little to no time trying to glean any meaningful information.

He said after the interview of another Biden spokesman, Ian Sams, "The Democrats' questioning…may have lasted three minutes. They let him read an opening statement, and they did their basic: what's your favorite color? And who's your favorite cartoon character?"

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the committee, said ahead of Bates' interview on Thursday, "I think the important thing about that investigation is Republicans, surely on the Oversight committee, they seem obsessed with the healthcare of Joe Biden and Joe Biden's health."

"They should be putting their efforts and focus on the healthcare of the American public, versus obsessing about Joe Biden and what he did, he didn't do. That's in the past, we're trying to move forward," Garcia said.