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A longtime aide to former President Joe Biden admitted that he stood to gain up to $8 million if the Democrat leader won re-election in 2024, newly released video shows.
Michael Donilon served as senior advisor to the president for the entirety of Biden’s four-year term. Their relationship goes back decades, however. Donilon first worked for Biden in 1981 when he was a U.S. senator from Delaware.
He is one of 14 ex-Biden administration officials to sit down with the House Oversight Committee behind closed doors in its probe into whether the former president’s inner circle covered up evidence of his alleged mental decline and whether executive actions were signed via autopen without Biden’s full awareness.
“My sense is that, in my view, the money was, that it was a guarantee in the campaign that we’d had a negotiation, and that’s my memory of the agreement,” Donilon said in the video when asked if his pay would have changed depending on how Biden fared in the election.
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Longtime Biden confidante Mike Donilon was among the people interviewed in the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into former President Joe Biden. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images; Oversight Committee GOP)
Donilon was then asked whether there were any circumstances under which he would have received a bonus, to which he acknowledged there was.
“What were those circumstances?” House Oversight Committee staff asked.
Donilon said, “That Joe Biden would have been re-elected President of the United States.”
That sum would have been $4 million, Donilon acknowledged, in addition to the $4 million he was already paid.
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Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, during a hearing in Washington, March 20, 2024. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
He defended it as “fair agreement” when asked if he believed it was a significant sum of money.
Donilon was then asked, “Do you think that the prospect of a significant payday, say $4 million, could impact someone’s judgment in general?”
“Well, I think under the circumstances you’re discussing, the incentive was to keep the president in the race. I, at the end, gave him the judgment that he should withdraw,” Donilon responded.
The House Oversight Committee released video of Donilon’s interview and others on the heels of its final report into Biden’s autopen use.
The GOP-led report accused Biden’s inner circle of actively conspiring to keep signs of diminishing mental acuity from the American public up until when he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.
Former President Joe Biden speaks at a news conference on the final day of the NATO summit in Washington, July 11, 2024. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)
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House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., heaped doubt on whether Biden actually signed off on all of his executive actions where autopen was used — in particular, the thousands of clemency orders he authorized during his term.
Comer said Biden’s autopen-authorized actions should be considered “void” and called on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to review the matter.
A Biden spokesperson criticized the probe, however, telling Fox News Digital, “This investigation into baseless claims has confirmed what has been clear from the start: President Biden made the decisions of his presidency. There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, and no wrongdoing. Congressional Republicans should stop focusing on political retribution and instead work to end the government shutdown.”
