A person familiar with the conversation told Fox News Digital that a longtime friend of former President Joe Biden told House Oversight Committee investigators that he might have made up to $8 million if Biden had won reelection in 2024.
Since 1981, when Biden was a U.S. senator from Delaware, Michael Donilon has been a key counselor to Biden during his presidency. His testimony is a part of a larger House Oversight investigation into whether executive orders were signed using an autopen without the president’s full knowledge and whether Biden’s inner circle members concealed evidence of his purported cognitive decline.
The insider claimed that Donilon did not remember knowing anything about the autopen and was not aware of its purpose.
According to reports, Donilon received $4 million for his work on the 2024 campaign, serving as top strategist for both the Biden 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns. The book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, written by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios journalist Alex Thompson, had information on that number. Donilon’s campaign revenues may have totaled $8 million if Biden had been re-elected.
Following a highly criticized debate performance against Donald Trump in June of that year, Biden finally withdrew from the 2024 contest in response to growing criticism from Democrats of all stripes.
According to reports, Donilon told investigators he thought Democratic lawmakers and political commentators exaggerated the response to Biden’s debate performance. Additionally, he asserted that Biden’s communication skills actually got better while he was in government.
According to the source, Mr. Donilon said in his interview that Joe Biden’s presence wasn’t as commanding and that he occasionally stumbled over his words. Mr. Donilon expressed his frustration and acknowledged that it was challenging to look past the images of President Biden that the public was viewing.
Donilon discussed his four-decade collaboration with Biden in an introductory statement that Fox News Digital was able to receive. He highlighted what he called the administration’s major accomplishments, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, employment creation, and pandemic recovery.
From the first to the last day of President Joe Biden’s tenure, I was with him. “What I witnessed on a daily basis was a leader who was fully involved and in control of important matters, both domestically and internationally,” Donilon said.
Over the course of his four years in office, President Biden aged like all presidents do, but he also continued to develop as a leader by overcoming some of the most challenging obstacles any president has ever encountered.
That experience, in my opinion, was extremely beneficial to the country. On the day President Biden took the oath of office, I thought he was the best candidate to lead the nation, and I remained convinced of that every day he was in office.
As part of the probe headed by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky, Donilon is now the ninth former official from the Biden administration to testify.
A source close to the Biden team, meanwhile, had earlier called the Republican-led investigation risky and a politically driven effort to undermine Biden’s legacy.
According to the insider, they are hoping that a single, minor discrepancy between the witnesses will surface so that Trump’s DOJ may bring charges against his political rivals and carry out his retaliation plan.
