A White House spokesperson for President Joe Biden has testified that he only spoke to the then-chief executive in person twice, Republican Rep. James Comer told reporters Thursday.
Ian Sams, who testified in front of a House committee about the MAGA-led conspiracy surrounding an autopen Biden used to sign legislation and pardons, was a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office from mid-2022 to August 2024.
Sams was one of Biden’s staunchest defenders last year, combating claims that the former president displayed signs of significant cognitive decline in his final year in power.
Comer, of Kentucky, countered on Thursday that it would be difficult for Sams to know the actual state of Biden given their limited interaction.
“He communicated with Joe Biden two times,” Comer said, citing Sams’ testimony, which has not been made public. “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.”
The lawmaker clarified in a statement to Fox News that Sams also spoke to Biden once over the phone and on a virtual call in another instance. That raises their total interactions to four—about one every six months.
Sams left the White House in August 2024 to join the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris, meaning he was not part of the Biden administration during the period being probed by Republicans for unauthorized use of an autopen.
Comer credited Sams’ willingness to answer all questions from the House Oversight Committee, calling it “the most informative” interview he has conducted to date in his probe into Biden.
A spokesperson for Biden declined to comment.
The former president, 82, has been notably quiet during the chaos of MAGA 2.0, aside from a mixed-bag appearance in May on The View, where he at times struggled to string together a complete sentence, and a speech in July to the National Bar Association in Chicago. His office announced in May that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Biden and those close to him have denied that cognitive issues marred the latter half of his term. They have also denied that anyone aside from Biden was calling the shots from the West Wing.
Comer, a top Trump ally, is not convinced.
“If the White House spokesperson was being shielded from the president of the United States, who was operating the Oval Office?” he said Thursday.
Sams is the 11th former Biden aide to be questioned by the committee.
Comer alleges that it is Biden’s final months in power that are the most likely to have involved nefarious actions from within the administration. Despite his claims, he has yet to provide any proof to date that anyone besides the ex-president controlled his autopen or made decisions from the Oval Office.
“There were very few people around Joe Biden, especially at the end, and that’s when the majority of the pardons and executive orders were signed with that autopen,” Comer said.
Several former presidents have used an autopen, including Barack Obama.
Biden never hid the fact that he uses an autopen, having utilized the device to make signatures since 2021, the first year of his term. The MAGA conspiracy regarding the device centers on whether Biden was aware of its use each time, with Trump among those on the right who are pushing the conspiracy that he was not.
