Special Counsel Robert Hur's report on Biden played a role in his team's decision to skip a Super Bowl interview (Getty Images)
The source familiar with her interview said Dunn also told committee staff that Biden’s inner circle came to a consensus he should not take a cognitive test, concluding it would offer no political benefit to the then-president.
It comes two days after Fox News Digital was told that ex-deputy White House chief of staff Bruce Reed, who met with House investigators on Tuesday, said Biden's White House physician Kevin O'Connor called cognitive tests "meaningless."
The source close to Dunn said Thursday that Biden's team believed he would be able to pass a cognitive test, even if they saw no political benefit in one.
Dunn also told investigators that she was not aware of Biden's stutter, which he's said he dealt with all his life, until media coverage of it in 2020, the first source said.
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"She went on to blame the media for pushing the narrative that President Biden was old," the source said.
The practice of pre-Super Bowl interviews began with former President George W. Bush opting to sit for an interview before the big game in 2004 and has been since followed by both former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump – though Trump also skipped out on a Super Bowl interview in 2019.
Biden sat for Super Bowl interviews in 2021 and 2022, but did not in 2023 and 2024.
L-R: Ian Sams, former special assistant to the president and senior advisor in the White House Counsel’s Office; Andrew Bates, former deputy assistant to the president and senior deputy press secretary; former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre; and, Jeff Zients, former White House chief of staff, are expected to sit down with House Oversight Committee investigators behind closed doors. (Fox News)
Dunn, like most of those who appeared before her, defended Biden's mental acuity to committee investigators.
"The President made it clear that decisions rested with him, and White House staff brought issues to him for him to decide," Dunn said in her opening statement, obtained by Fox News Digital. "I believed strongly then, and I believe just as strongly today, that Joe Biden was an effective President who accomplished many important things for the American people."
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A spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee criticized Dunn after the statement came out in the media, however.
"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 media before Ms. Dunn even delivered it, is yet another example of the absurd lengths Biden loyalists will go to defend his failed presidency," the spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital also reached out to a representative for Biden and to Dunn's counsel for comment.
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-camp-skipped-super-bowl-interview-amid-robert-hur-report-concerns-source