President Joe Biden’s top aides decided he should skip the traditional Super Bowl interview last year due to concerns over the political fallout from special counsel Robert Hur’s report, former senior White House adviser Anita Dunn told House investigators on Thursday, according to sources familiar with her testimony.
Dunn, a longtime Democratic strategist and communications aide to Biden, said the team feared that lingering scrutiny over the president’s memory, following Hur’s findings that he was an ‘elderly man with a poor memory,’ would overshadow the high-profile appearance and serve as a distraction, one source close to the House Oversight Committee said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
Although it was the second time during his presidency that Biden skipped the traditional pre-game interview, it was a monumental decision, given the upcoming November election against his opponent, then-former President Donald Trump.
The Hur report, released on Feb. 5, 2024, investigated whether Joe Biden willfully mishandled classified documents after materials from his vice presidency during the Obama era were found at his Delaware home and private office. Hur concluded that Biden would likely appear to a jury as a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory” and that “many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt.”
Another source said that Dunn allegedly told lawmakers that Biden’s inner circle reached a consensus that he should not take a cognitive test while in office, arguing it would yield no political benefit and invite partisan attacks. Dunn emphasized that press coverage, not internal concerns among aides, had largely driven the public narrative about Biden’s mental acuity and age concerns.
A source familiar with the interview who is close to Dunn told the Washington Examiner that Biden’s team “decided this BEFORE the Hur report had come out.”
“She told the committee President Biden’s team decided against doing a Super Bowl interview last year because they thought the main coverage would be about what he did with classified records and not about the President’s policy decisions,” the source close to Dunn added.
Dunn arrived Thursday morning on Capitol Hill for a closed-door interview with Oversight Committee investigators, as part of the panel’s intensifying inquiry into whether top aides worked to conceal signs of Biden’s mental decline.
Dunn declined to answer reporters’ questions as she arrived at the Rayburn House Office Building and walked into the committee room just before 10 a.m.
In a written statement offered by a representative for Dunn, the former aide defended Biden’s fitness for office, saying he remained “fully engaged and clear in his directions and supervision” during her time in the White House. She said that while Biden aged physically, as all presidents do, his decision-making ability and grasp of policy never wavered.
“His ability to probe, to find the weakness in an argument, and to make well-informed decisions did not change during my time in the White House,” she said.
She also disputed the core allegation behind the Oversight investigation, stating unequivocally, “I did not observe White House staff making key decisions or exercising the powers of the presidency without President Biden’s knowledge or consent.”
Dunn is the 10th former White House official to appear before committee lawyers in the investigation, which has zeroed in on whether Biden’s inner circle circumvented constitutional safeguards and misled the public about the former president’s fitness to serve. At the center of the inquiry are questions about Biden’s use of the autopen to sign executive actions and whether some were issued without his full awareness.
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee, led by Chairman James Comer (R-KY), pushed back on Dunn’s assessment.
“It’s no surprise Anita Dunn is telling the American people not to believe their own eyes, claiming Joe Biden was sharp and ‘fully engaged.’ This opening statement, leaked to the media before Ms. Dunn even delivered it, is yet another example of the absurd lengths Biden loyalists will go to defend his failed presidency,” a Comer spokesperson said.
Dunn, a longtime Democratic strategist, appeared voluntarily for the transcribed interview, which began shortly after she arrived at 10 a.m. and stretched to 3:30 p.m. ET Thursday afternoon.
Three of the nine officials who previously appeared before the committee did so under subpoena and invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering material questions. Dunn was not under subpoena, meaning she could claim the same constitutional protection against self-incrimination. But committee aides have warned that witnesses can still decline to provide substantive answers even in voluntary appearances.
“She’s running everything,” a former White House adviser told CNN in 2023, describing Dunn’s role during Biden’s reelection campaign. The veteran communications consultant was widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in Biden’s political orbit, serving alongside her husband, former Obama White House counsel Bob Bauer, who also acted as Biden’s personal attorney.
“If it’s a room of five people, Anita and Bob are two of them,” one former administration aide told NBC News in January 2023.
Comer, who summoned Dunn via letter earlier this year, has said her perspective is key to understanding what the White House knew and when about Biden’s cognitive condition.
“You served as former President Biden’s most senior communications adviser,” Comer wrote. “The Committee seeks to understand your observations of former President Biden’s mental acuity and health as one of his closest advisers. If White House staff carried out a strategy lasting months or even years to hide the chief executive’s condition — or to perform his duties — Congress may need to consider a legislative response.”
Like others who have appeared before her, Dunn has known Biden for years and was a central architect of his messaging in the West Wing and on the campaign trail. She returned to the White House after the 2020 election to help shape Biden’s communications agenda and again became a leading voice during his short-lived 2024 reelection effort.
Dunn’s name also surfaced in reports following Biden’s disastrous June 2024 debate performance against Donald Trump, which sparked internal family discussions about whether to fire her and Bauer. NBC News reported at the time that the chief of staff, Jeff Zients, dismissed the speculation as “unfounded and insulting rumors.”
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Despite previous witnesses defending Biden’s mental acuity, some, including former chief of staff Ron Klain, conceded that the 82-year-old president had slowed with age.
The committee’s investigation is expected to continue in the coming weeks, with additional interviews and subpoenas as Republicans consider possible legislative reforms or referrals based on their findings.
