A top aide to former First Lady Jill Biden pleaded the Fifth Amendment at his deposition on Wednesday, opting not to answer any questions regarding former President Joe Biden&#8217;s health and cognitive state during his term in the White House.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) said that he&#8217;d only asked Anthony Bernal — Jill Biden&#8217;s chief of staff — two questions about the former president, and revealed that Bernal had pleaded the Fifth instead of offering an answer to either.
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Anthony Bernal — Jill Biden’s Chief of Staff — just invoked the Fifth Amendment during his congressional deposition.
This week new reporting confirms President Biden’s aides took unauthorized executive actions during his presidency amid his cognitive decline. It’s no…
— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepJamesComer/status/1945494393773080998?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Anthony Bernal — Jill Biden’s Chief of Staff — just invoked the Fifth Amendment during his congressional deposition,&#8221; Comer said, referencing a New York Times report that revealed just how many of the pardons and sentence commutations allegedly signed off by then-President Biden had actually been signed using the autopen — and questions had been raised as to who had given the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-admits-he-used-autopen-for-mass-criminal-pardons-says-he-didnt-review-every-case">final approval</a> for the autopen to be used. &#8220;This week new reporting confirms President Biden’s aides took unauthorized executive actions during his presidency amid his cognitive decline.&#8221;
&#8220;It’s no surprise that Anthony Bernal is pleading the Fifth Amendment to shield himself from criminal liability. During his deposition today, Mr. Bernal pleaded the Fifth when asked if any unelected official or family members executed the duties of the President and if Joe Biden ever instructed him to lie about his health,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;This is a historic scandal and Americans demand transparency and accountability. We will continue to pursue the truth on their behalf and examine options to get the answers we need.&#8221;
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🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Watch the moment Anthony Bernal takes the 5th at our deposition today.
• Did you advise President Biden to pardon Hunter? 
&#8211; FIFTH!
• Was President Biden fit to exercise the duties of President? 
&#8211; FIFTH!
• Did any unelected official or family member execute… <a href="https://t.co/NmPQLwXrnl">pic.twitter.com/NmPQLwXrnl</a>
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) <a href="https://twitter.com/GOPoversight/status/1945568876647125121?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) took his assessment a step further, noting that in addition to not answering any questions, Bernal would not even read his own statement before the committee.
&#8220;This morning, I attended the deposition of Anthony Bernal – Jill Biden&#8217;s &#8216;work husband.&#8217; These are my takeaways,&#8221; Donalds said. &#8220;He couldn&#8217;t answer A SINGLE QUESTION; He refused to read his own statement; This is corruption at the highest level; Joe was not in charge of his own admin; Every order, bill, &amp; memo is NULL &amp; VOID; The Democrats can&#8217;t hide from this; We must subpoena ALL BIDEN STAFF; @DrBiden must be called to testify; @KamalaHarris must be called to testify.&#8221;
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This morning, I attended the deposition of Anthony Bernal–Jill Biden&#8217;s &#8220;work husband.&#8221; These are my takeaways:
🚩He couldn&#8217;t answer A SINGLE QUESTION 
🚩He refused to read his own statement 
🚩This is corruption at the highest-level 
🚩Joe was not in charge of his own admin 
🚩Every… <a href="https://t.co/moix6gOcVu">pic.twitter.com/moix6gOcVu</a>
— Congressman Byron Donalds (@RepDonaldsPress) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepDonaldsPress/status/1945521276711575980?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Just days earlier, the former president&#8217;s doctor, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/its-now-clear-there-was-a-conspiracy-bidens-doctor-pleads-the-fifth-as-gop-probes-cover-up">Kevin O&#8217;Connor</a>, also pleaded the Fifth Amendment, answering no questions about Biden&#8217;s health or cognitive abilities while in the White House.

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On Wednesday, an American professor and virologist posted what he says is evidence that critical data from the earliest confirmed COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China, was &#8220;deleted,&#8221; thus potentially eliminating key information on how the virus originated and how long it had been spreading in its early stages.
In a preprint <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.18.449051v1.full.pdf+html">study</a> published Friday titled &#8220;Recovery of deleted deep sequencing data sheds more light on the early Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 epidemic,&#8221; Professor Jesse Bloom, a virologist from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, explained that he discovered a data set of 45 positive samples from Wuhan outpatients with suspected COVID-19 early in the epidemic that was &#8220;deleted from the NIH&#8217;s Sequence Read Archive.&#8221;
&#8220;I recover the deleted files from the Google Cloud, and reconstruct partial sequences of 13 early epidemic viruses,&#8221; Bloom wrote in the abstract of the study. &#8220;Phylogenetic analysis of these sequences in the context of carefully annotated existing data suggests that the Huanan Seafood Market sequences that are the focus of the joint WHO-China report are not fully representative of the viruses in Wuhan early in the epidemic. Instead, the progenitor of known SARS-CoV-2 sequences likely contained three mutations relative to the market viruses that made it more similar to SARS-CoV-2&#8217;s bat coronavirus relatives.&#8221;
Bloom also issued a <a href="https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1407445607694753796?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1407445607694753796%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Feditorial.dailywire.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Fpost%3D238507action%3Dedit">Twitter thread</a> on his discovery in which he wrote:
<blockquote>In a new study, I identify and recover a deleted set of #SARSCoV2 sequences that provide additional information about viruses from the early Wuhan outbreak. Specifically, HIN maintains the Sequence Read Archive, where scientists around world deposit deep sequencing data for others to analyze. I noted<a href="https://peerj.com/articles/9255/"> peerj.com/articles/9255</a> lists all #SARSCoV2 data in archive as of March 31, 2020. Most from a project by Wuhan University.
But when I went to Sequence Read Archive, I found entire project was gone! (Note that as detailed below, this does *not* imply malfeasance by NIH. Sequence Read Archive policy allows submitters to delete by e-mail request.) I was able to determine deleted data corresponded to a study that partially sequenced “45 nasopharyngeal samples from [Wuhan] outpatients with suspected COVID-19 early in the epidemic.&#8221;
I discovered that even though the files were deleted from archive itself, they could be recovered from the Google Cloud … Using this approach, I recovered files for the 34 early samples that were virus positive. I was able to use the data in the files to reconstruct partial viral sequences (from start of spike to end of ORF10) for 13 of these samples.</blockquote>
Bloom explained that whether the emergence of COVID was caused by zoonosis or a lab accident, “everyone agrees deep ancestors are coronavirus from bats.” He pointed out, “Therefore, we’d expect the first #SARSCoV2 sequences would be more similar to bat coronaviruses, and as #SARSCoV2 continued to evolve, it would become more divergent from these ancestors. But that is not the case!”
Instead, he pointed out, “Early Huanan Seafood Market #SARSCoV2 viruses are more different from bat coronaviruses than #SARSCoV2 viruses collected later in China and even other countries. … The conundrum is easily seen by plotting the relative differences from the bat coronavirus RaTG13 outgroup versus collection date for early  #SARSCoV2. If we include those sequences, and note 4 sequences from Guangdong are from two groups of people infected in Wuhan in late Dec / early Jan, we get plausible scenarios that resolve above problems. These two scenarios are plotted below. Each has a different ‘progenitor,’ which is the sequence that gave rise to all currently known #SARSCoV2 sequences …
He concluded, “Both progenitors suggest #SARSCoV2 was circulating in Wuhan before December outbreak at Huanan Seafood Market, which is corroborated by lots of other evidence, including news articles from China in early 2020. … There are also broader implications. First, fact this dataset was deleted should make us skeptical that all other relevant early Wuhan sequences have been shared.”
He added, “Sequence sharing could be further limited by fact that scientists in China are under an order from the State Council requiring central approval of all publications.”
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Specifically, NIH maintains the Sequence Read Archive, where scientists around world deposit deep sequencing data for others to analyze. I noted <a href="https://t.co/6bROuUTlM5">https://t.co/6bROuUTlM5</a> lists all <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SARSCoV2?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SARSCoV2</a> data in archive as of March-31-2020. Most from a project by Wuhan University. (2/n) <a href="https://t.co/9V4dchZVUl">pic.twitter.com/9V4dchZVUl</a>
&mdash; Bloom Lab (@jbloom_lab) <a href="https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1407445607694753796?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2021</a></blockquote>
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I was able to determine deleted data corresponded to a study that partially sequenced “45 nasopharyngeal samples from [Wuhan] outpatients with suspected COVID-19 early in the epidemic“ <a href="https://t.co/8z5bnJE4tJ">https://t.co/8z5bnJE4tJ</a> (4/n)
&mdash; Bloom Lab (@jbloom_lab) <a href="https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1407445614120497155?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Using this approach, I recovered files for the 34 early samples that were virus positive. I was able to use the data in the files to reconstruct partial viral sequences (from start of spike to end of ORF10) for 13 of these samples. (6/n)
&mdash; Bloom Lab (@jbloom_lab) <a href="https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1407445616330907649?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Therefore, we’d expect the first <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SARSCoV2?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SARSCoV2</a> sequences would be more similar to bat coronaviruses, and as <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SARSCoV2?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SARSCoV2</a> continued to evolve it would become more divergent from these ancestors. But that is *not* the case! (8/n)
&mdash; Bloom Lab (@jbloom_lab) <a href="https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1407445618323197955?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2021</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;
In response to the study, Professor Lawrence Young, a molecular biologist at the University of Warwick, told <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9716531/More-proof-support-lab-leak-theory-China-DELETED-samples-earliest-patients.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline">The Daily Mail</a>:
<blockquote>The study further cements the fact the virus was circulating in Wuhan before the outbreak in December. It highlights and reinforces the inadequacy of the original WHO investigation, which was compromised by not being able to access data. This just shows how important it is to understand the early spread of the virus and any future investigation really does need to look seriously at the whole issue.</blockquote>
Young, said the study “certainly suggests the COVID virus or a very close precursor virus [a less mutated version] was circulating before it started to take off. It could&#8217;ve jumped to humans much earlier than the consensus thinking, perhaps even months before.”
On Monday, President Joe Biden’s top intelligence official, Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-bidens-top-intelligence-official-says-covid-19-origins-may-never-be-known-201625396.html">told</a> Yahoo News that it was “absolutely” possible the administration may never have a high degree of confidence regarding the origins of the pandemic that has killed millions of people and devastated economies worldwide, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bidens-top-intel-official-we-may-never-know-where-the-true-origins-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic">The Daily Wire</a> reported.

Focus on Delete

Biden Official Said We May Never Know Origins Of COVID. Now Scientist Says He Discovered ‘Deleted’ Evidence Of Earliest Known COVID Patients In Wuhan.

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A World Health Organization advisory board member said Monday that China even now continues to operate a &#8220;massive cover-up&#8221; on the origins and spread of the coronavirus that caused the global pandemic.
&#8220;The Chinese have engaged in a massive cover-up that is going on until this day, involving destroying samples, hiding records, placing a universal gag order on Chinese scientists and imprisoning Chinese citizen journalists asking the most basic questions,&#8221; Jamie Metzl <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/chinas-massive-cover-up-on-covid-still-happening-who-advisory-board-member">said</a> Monday on Fox News.
&#8220;The more that China stonewalls, the more suspicious that it looks,&#8221; Metzl added. &#8220;We can&#8217;t give China a veto over whether or not we investigate the world&#8217;s worst pandemic in a century and then do everything we can to make everybody safe.&#8221;
Investigators are probing whether the coronavirus could have been leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China. Meanwhile, China is reportedly <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a0badd5d-4d88-4a3b-b019-61c6d8275caa">planning</a> on launching 25 to 30 biosafety level three labs and one biosafety level four lab, the kind operated by the Wuhan Institute of Virology, over the next five years.
The idea that the virus could have escaped from a lab was largely dismissed last year as a conspiracy as the pandemic tightened its grip on the U.S., but the theory has been revived in recent weeks after a U.S. intelligence report <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-wuhan-lab-fuels-debate-on-covid-19-origin-11621796228?mod=hp_lead_pos3">found</a> that several researchers at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized in November 2019 with symptoms that resembled COVID-19 symptoms. China previously told the World Health Organization that the first person with symptoms similar to COVID-19 appeared in Wuhan the next month on December 8, 2019.
China is <a href="https://www.ghsindex.org/country/china/">ranked</a> substantially less prepared than the U.S. on biosecurity by the Global Health Security Index.
&#8220;There&#8217;s a reason why after a plane crashes, we do everything possible to understand what happened,&#8221; Metzl said. &#8220;If we don&#8217;t learn those lessons, there are other planes that are in the air. For all we know, the next pandemic is just around the corner and if we don&#8217;t understand and fix our biggest problems, we&#8217;re going to be at unnecessary risk. We have to get to the bottom of this, which means asking that tough questions and following the data wherever it leads.&#8221;
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) last week called the origins of the coronavirus the “worst cover-up in human history,” saying it is “more likely than not” that the pathogen’s spread was caused by a lab accident.
“You know, I do think it’s more likely than not it emerged out of the lab. Most likely accidentally,” McCaul <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rep-mike-mccaul-calls-coronavirus-origin-worst-cover-up-in-human-history">said</a>. “This is the worst cover-up in human history that we’ve seen, resulting in 3.5 million deaths, creating an economic devastation around the globe.”
House Republicans have called for a congressional probe into the origins of the virus, and some Democrats have joined them in urging for an investigation.
In January, the WHO delivered a rare rebuke to China, saying the country had refused to allow a team of scientists investigating the origins of the virus to enter the country.

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Top Jill Biden Aide Joins White House Doc, Takes The Fifth In Biden Health Cover-Up Probe

The Fall Of Andrew Cuomo: How An Empire Built On Fear Came Crashing Down

Biden Official Said We May Never Know Origins Of COVID. Now Scientist Says He Discovered ‘Deleted’ Evidence Of Earliest Known COVID Patients In Wuhan.

WHO Advisory Board Member Says China Still Engaged In ‘Massive Cover-Up’ Involving Destroying Samples, Silencing Scientists