patrick.net

In news of the utterly predictable, yesterday the Telegraph ran a story headlined, “Democrats boycott Biden cognitive decline hearing.” Seven of nine Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee opted not to attend the hearing on President Cabbage’s Autopen adventures. One of the two attending Democrats delivered a scathing opening address and then jetted. He called the hearing “a distraction” and “a waste of time” that voters don’t care about.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/18/democrats-boycott-biden-cognitive-decline-hearing/

“Apparently, armchair diagnosing former President Biden is more important than other issues of grave concern,” Senator Dick Durban (D-Ill.) groused. Well, yes, Dick, it is. How about that?

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said, “The stonewall continues. They can’t bear to show their faces in public.” Senator Katie Britt (R-Al.) said, “The fact that we have none of my Democratic colleagues over here, shows that they are not interested in correcting it for the future.”

And Sir Robin bravely ran away…

Let’s be charitable. I think the truth is the Democrats had a senior moment. They just forgot about the hearing. It happens. You know, the thing. It’s understandable. They’re consumed with worry about “grave concerns” like oil cancer, cannibals in the South Pacific, where Uncle Bosey got off to, misinformation, and stuff like that.

CLIP: Biden’s doctor refuses to answer questions during House oversight committee meeting (1:12).

It was a “somebody didn’t say something” story. The ‘somebody’ was Biden’s longtime personal physician (aka fixer), Kevin O’Connor. What Dr. O’Connor didn’t say during his Congressional testimony this week was anything useful about the former President’s soggy brain or the overworked Oval Office Autopen, when instead he repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions lest those answers prove inconveniently incriminating. ...

Invoking the Fifth doesn’t prove wrongdoing. But it doesn’t look good, either, especially related to a scandal of this proportion. Fortunately, a simple remedy exists. The DOJ can immunize the doctor (legally, not with a needle), after which the risk of incrimination will be cured, and he’ll be unable to receive a prescription to refuse to testify.

If so, that’s where things could get especially interesting. A witness who pleads the Fifth, then gets immunity and is compelled to testify, must deliver something meaningful. If his final testimony turns out to be bland or evasive, it casts doubt on his original Fifth Amendment claim— making it look frivolous or even deceptive.

That, in turn, opens the door to other legal and political consequences. In short, once immunized, O’Connor would be under real pressure to cough up something spicy.