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One of former President Joe Biden’s staunchest defenders in the last year of his presidency only met with the ex-commander-in-chief in person twice while working at the White House, a top Republican said.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., has been leading the closed-door transcribed interview of Ian Sams, who served as a top spokesman on matters related to congressional investigations and other probes during the latter two years of the Biden administration.
“That was probably the most informative transcribed interview slash deposition we’ve had thus far. I’ll give Mr. Sams credit. He answered our questions,” Comer told reporters.
“I think one of the most shocking things to me is…he communicated with Joe Biden two times. 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.”
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Former President Joe Biden, pictured here in May 2021, and his mental acuity are the subject of a House Oversight Committee probe. (AP Newsroom)
Comer told Fox News Digital in a statement following the interview that Sams interacted with Biden on four occasions in total – two in-person meetings, one virtual meeting, and one phone call.
Sams did notably leave the White House in August 2024, before Republicans began questioning Biden’s autopen use and before the myriad clemency orders were signed by the ex-president. But he did defend Biden during some of the most politically consequential moments of his term.
The longtime left-wing operative served as senior advisor and spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office from May 2022 through August 2024, where he served as a fierce defender of Biden during both House Republicans’ investigations into his ties to family members’ foreign business endeavors, and Special Counsel Robert Hur’s probe into Biden’s handling of classified documents.
Notably, Sams criticized “wrong” and “inaccurate” findings in Hur’s report on Biden in comments to the press in February 2024. Hur had declined to charge Biden, writing that “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
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Comer told reporters on Thursday, however, “In fact, Robert Hur spent more time with Joe Biden than Ian Sams.”
“Ian Sams is the one that would counter everything Robert Hur or anytime anyone would suggest that Joe Biden wasn’t mentally fit. He would say no, he’s at the top of his game,” Comer said. “He interacted with the president two times, the entire time. The entire time he worked in the White House.”
Days after Biden’s disastrous June 2024 debate against President Donald Trump,