A former spokesperson for then-President Joe Biden admitted to Congress in August testimony, which surfaced on social media Wednesday, that he had only met with the aging president between one and five times in over two years despite previously claiming he was ‘sharp’ ‘every single day.’
In a July 2, 2024, interview on MSNBC, then-Biden spokesperson Ian Sams said of the former president that ‘When I deal with him, he is sharp, he is asking tough questions, that’s the President Biden that so many of us experience every single day.’
Pressed by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on how many times he had met with Biden, Sams admitted that he had ‘interacted with him pretty infrequently’ and ‘met with the president a handful of times during my tenure in the White House.’
He further admitted that some of these interactions were online or over the phone. During his testimony he recalled two in-person meetings with Biden.
Sams worked in the White House from 2022 to 2024, serving in the roles of special assistant to the president, spokesperson and senior advisor in the White House Counsel’s Office.
Sams was pressed on whether the basis of his statements on Biden’s mental fitness was from his ‘handful’ of interactions with the former president.
‘You said that you met him personally maybe a handful of times. Are those the interactions that you were discussing when you say, ‘I deal with him’?’ a committee staff member asked, to which Sams responded, ‘Yes.’
‘Do you think that’s a bit misleading?’ Sams was asked.
He answered, ‘I think it was pretty direct and honest and said that when I do deal with him, he’s, you know, sharp and he was asking incisive questions during my meetings with him.’
‘But you dealt with him five times in 24 months. That’s not exactly a large scope of knowledge on how he interacts with staff,’ the committee staffer pressed, adding, ‘Do you think that statement suggests that you deal with him more than you did?’
Sams shot back, ‘I don’t think so. I mean, I spoke about my own interactions with him.’
Despite this, Sams maintained that though he ‘definitely noticed some aging’ in Biden, ‘I had no reason to think that he was anything other than capable of being the president and executing his duties.’
The House Oversight Committee GOP posted on its official X account, ‘Ian Sams, one of Joe Biden’s spokespersons, met with him only TWICE in over TWO YEARS. Then he would go on live television and say he interacted with him EVERY SINGLE DAY.’
‘He was LYING to the American people to cover up for Biden’s decline,’ the GOP account wrote.
Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., also posted on X, writing, ‘Biden’s top spokesman, Ian Sams, admitted to Congress he met Joe Biden only twice in two years. But that didn’t stop him from loudly insisting Joe was ‘fit.’’
‘Ian was just reading from a script written by Biden’s handlers,’ added Comer.
In a statement released by the Oversight Committee, Comer went on to say, ‘The Biden Autopen Presidency will go down as one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history. As Americans saw President Biden’s decline with their own eyes, Biden’s inner circle sought to deceive the public, cover-up his decline, and took unauthorized executive actions with the autopen that are now invalid.’
‘Our report reveals how key aides colluded to mislead the public and the extraordinary measures they took to sustain the appearance of presidential authority as Biden’s capacity to function independently diminished,’ he went on, adding, ‘Executive actions performed by Biden White House staff and signed by autopen are null and void. We are calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct a thorough review of these executive actions and scrutinize key Biden aides who took the Fifth to hide their participation in the cover-up.’
Fox News Digital reached out to Sams for comment but did not immediately receive a response.