Congressional Republicans are investigating the apparent cover-up of former President Joe Biden's obvious physical and mental health decline, and that involves interviewing several members of Biden's former inner circle at the White House, including former White House Physician Kevin O'Connor.

On Tuesday, it was revealed that President Trump had decided to waive any claims of executive privilege that O'Connor might make during his subpoenaed interview this week with the House Oversight Committee, according to Fox News.

Biden and his supporters have no room to complain about the breach of privilege, however, as Trump's move mirrors Biden's play a few years earlier to waive executive privilege for several of Trump's former aides, along with reams of archived documents from the Trump White House.

Biden's doctor can't claim executive privilege

Fox News obtained a copy of a White House Counsel's Office letter to Dr. O'Connor that stated, "In light of the unique and extraordinary nature of the matters under investigation, President Trump has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the national interest, and therefore is not justified, with respect to particular subjects within the purview of the House Oversight Committee."

"These subjects include your assessment of former President Biden’s fitness for the office of the president and your financial relationship with the Biden family," the letter continued.

"The extraordinary events in this matter constitute exceptional circumstances warranting an accommodation to Congress," the correspondence said at another point. "Evidence that aides to former President Biden concealed information regarding his fitness to exercise the powers of the President -- and may have unconstitutionally exercised those powers themselves to aid in their concealment -- implicates both Congress’ constitutional and legislative powers."

The letter to O'Connor added, "After balancing the Legislative and Executive Branch interests, as required under the accommodation process, it is the President’s view that this presents an exceptional situation in which the congressional need for information outweighs the Executive Branch’s interest in maintaining confidentiality, especially given the Executive Branch’s own interest in determining the validity of prior executive actions."

Biden previously waived Trump's executive privilege claims

Of course, Dr. O'Connor's legal team expressed outrage at the purportedly "unprecedented" nature of the waived privilege, and wrote in reply to the Trump White House, "We are unaware of any prior occasion on which a Congressional Committee has subpoenaed a physician to testify about the treatment of an individual patient. And the notion that a Congressional Committee would do so without any regard whatsoever for the confidentiality of the physician-patient relationship is alarming."

To be sure, they may have a point about the doctor-patient privilege, but that is not what was waived here, and it is noteworthy that nothing was said about executive privilege, as the precedent was most certainly previously set in that regard by none other than former President Biden himself.

In October 2021, Politico reported that Biden took the never-before-taken and highly controversial step of waiving then-former President Trump's claimed executive privilege over thousands of archived documents from the Trump White House that were demanded by the Democrat-led House Jan. 6 Committee, which followed the waiving of privilege claims for four of Trump's former close aides who'd been subpoenaed by the committee.

The Associated Press reported at the time that the "risky move" by Biden "could come back to haunt him" once he'd left office, given the current realities of the "hyperpartisan world of Washington politics."

Indeed, Axios reported last month that, following the precedent set by Biden, Trump had waived claims of executive privilege for nine of his predecessor's former aides -- O'Connor's waiver makes 10 total -- who'd been called upon or subpoenaed to testify before the House Oversight Committee.

Lacking privilege protection, O'Connor pleads the Fifth

As it turned out, the waiver of Dr. O'Connor's executive privilege claims didn't matter, nor did the doctor-patient privilege, during the former White House physician's subpoenaed deposition on Wednesday, as he merely pleaded the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer any of the questions posed to him by the House Oversight Committee, according to The Hill.

"It’s clear there was a conspiracy to cover up President Biden’s cognitive decline after Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician and family business associate, refused to answer any questions and chose to hide behind the Fifth Amendment," Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said. "The American people demand transparency, but Dr. O’Connor would rather conceal the truth."

"Dr. O’Connor took the Fifth when asked if he was told to lie about President Biden’s health and whether he was fit to be President of the United States," the chairman added. "Congress must assess legislative solutions to prevent such a cover-up from happening again. We will continue to interview more Biden White House aides to get the answers Americans deserve."