Ashley Williams, a longtime ally of former President Joe Biden, met with House investigators behind closed doors for nearly six hours Friday as Republicans probe allegations the Democrat’s top aides hid his mental decline.

A source familiar with the transcribed interview told Fox News Digital Williams said she did not ‘recall’ various things ‘an untold number of times.’

‘Examples include she could not recall if she spoke with President Biden in the last week, if teleprompters were used for Cabinet meetings, if there were discussions about President Biden using a wheelchair, if there were discussions about a cognitive test, if she discussed a mental or physical decline of President Biden, if she ever had to wake President Biden up and how she got involved with his 2020 campaign,’ the source said.

Williams told House investigators Biden is fit to be president today, the source said. 

In addition to whether senior aides covered up Biden’s alleged decline, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is looking into whether any presidential orders were signed via autopen without the former commander in chief’s knowledge.

Any allegations of wrongdoing so far have been denied by the ex-president’s allies.

But Republican investigators have pointed to Biden’s disastrous June 2024 debate and subsequent revelations in the media that there were more concerns from Biden’s inner circle about his fitness for office than previously known.

Williams, however, argued he was in command of himself during that debate, the source said.

The former White House aide said nothing to reporters when entering or leaving the committee meeting room for her voluntary interview.

Fox News Digital reached out to Williams’ lawyers for their account of events inside the room.

It was a staff-led meeting, but Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, briefly stopped in for just under 30 minutes to show ‘solidarity’ with the witness, the progressive told reporters afterward.

‘I do think that it is important that I show up because if they are going to make allegations about the former commander in chief, egregious allegations they continue to wage, I want to make sure that I’m in the room to correct the record because a lot of times they like to mischaracterize things,’ she said.

When asked by Fox News Digital if the interview was still ongoing as she exited, Crockett answered, ‘It’s still going. I’m leaving early. I’ve got to get to another thing.’ 

The source who spoke with Fox News Digital said Crockett had come in during the GOP’s questioning session and did not ask any questions herself. Fox News Digital reached out to her office for a response.

Williams is a longtime Biden ally whose time with the Democrat goes back to assisting second lady Jill Biden during the Obama administration, according to a 2019 profile of Biden staffers.

Williams later worked for Biden’s 2020 campaign and presidential transition team. She served as his trip director before being hired by the White House as deputy director of Oval Office operations and a special assistant to the president.

Williams ended her White House tenure as deputy assistant to the president, senior advisor to the president and director of strategic outreach, according to her LinkedIn page.

Notably, the social media page also says Williams still works for the ex-leader as senior advisor in the Office of Former President Joe Biden.

She was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee last year during Republicans’ investigation into Biden’s cognitive health, but GOP investigators say the former White House blocked her from giving any information.

The Democratic staffer is the third person to appear before committee investigators in recent weeks.

Former Biden White House physician Kevin O’Connor appeared for a sworn deposition Wednesday after being subpoenaed by Comer.

David Gergen, who worked for four presidents, including Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, before becoming an academic and political TV pundit, has died. He was 83. 

Gergen died in a retirement home in Massachusetts on July 10, his son said, according to several outlets. 

The Washington, D.C., veteran had been suffering from Lewy body dementia, his son said. 

Those who knew and admired Gergen took to X to express their condolences. 

Former California first lady Maria Shriver wrote on X: ‘David Gergen was total professional and a really kind man. My thoughts are with his family. He loved politics and he loved being in service to this country.’

‘RIP, Mr. Gergen,’ CBS reporter Robert Costa wrote. 

Former Democratic Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. wrote: ‘We lost a good one, a really good one – RIP, my friend David Gergen

Gergen came up with the line that then-candidate Reagan said in the 1980 election: ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ according to The New York Times. 

He later said of the line: ‘Rhetorical questions have great power.’ 

Of his time with the Nixon administration, Gergen told the Washington Post in 1981, ‘I was young, and I was too naive. It hardened me up a lot. It was an extremely difficult experience emotionally, in terms of belief in people.’ 

After leaving public office, Gergen worked as an editor and columnist, as well as for the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the liberal Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He was also a commentator for PBS, CNN and NPR. 

‘To say that I rely on him is an understatement,’ Reagan’s White House Chief of Staff, James A. Baker III, told The Washington Post in 1981. ‘He’s the best conceptualizer, in terms of communications strategy, that we have.’

Former White House aide Ashley Williams is the latest ex-Biden administration official to appear in the House Oversight Committee’s probe.

Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., is investigating allegations that Biden’s former top White House aides covered up signs of his mental and physical decline while in office, and whether any executive actions were commissioned via autopen without the president’s full knowledge. Biden allies have pushed back on those claims.

Williams is the third member of Biden’s White House inner circle to show up, though she said nothing to reporters on her way into the room late Friday morning nor during a brief lunch break in the afternoon.

She’s a longtime Biden ally whose time with the Democrat goes back to assisting then-second lady Jill Biden during the Obama administration, according to a 2019 profile of Biden staffers.

Williams later worked for both Biden’s 2020 campaign and presidential transition team. She served as his trip director before being hired to the White House as deputy director of Oval Office Operations and a special assistant to the president.

Williams ended her White House tenure as deputy assistant to the president, senior advisor to the president, and director of Strategic Outreach, according to her LinkedIn page.

Notably, the social media page also says Williams still works for the ex-leader as senior advisor in the Office of Former President Joe Biden.

Williams is a graduate of Georgetown University, and received a doctorate of Law from the University of Pennsylvania. She also got a Master’s degree in political management from George Washington University.

She was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee last year in Republicans’ investigation into Biden’s cognitive health, but GOP investigators say the White House blocked her from giving any information.

‘The Biden White House obstructed the Committee’s investigation and refused to make the aides available for depositions or interviews,’ the committee said in a press release this year.

Williams’ Friday appearance was not forced under subpoena, however. She appeared voluntarily for her closed-door transcribed interview.

The Trump White House waived executive privilege for Williams along with several other former Biden aides last month.

Progressive firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, made a second surprise appearance at the House Oversight Committee’s closed-door discussions with former Biden administration aides this week, once again criticizing President Donald Trump on the way out.

Crockett surprised reporters when she arrived roughly 15 minutes after House investigators’ transcribed interview with former White House advisor Ashley Williams began, declining to speak on the way in.

The Texas Democrat emerged just over 30 minutes later, saying little about what went on inside but telling reporters she still had ‘absolutely’ no concerns about Biden’s mental fitness while in office.

She said it was important to ‘be there physically’ for Biden allies being interviewed in the GOP probe – even going as far as suggesting the Trump administration created a threatening environment for members of Congress and its own political opponents.

‘It is important…in my mind, to be there for these witnesses. Unfortunately, we know what happens when this regime gets going. We know about the threats that come upon them, that come upon us as members of Congress,’ Crockett said.

‘I think it is important to stand there in solidarity and to at least be there physically so that they don’t feel like they’re alone as they are enduring egregious attacks consistently from this administration.’

Crockett was the only lawmaker seen going in or out of Williams’ meeting with investigators on Friday. The transcribed interview was expected to be staff-led, and lawmakers were not required to attend.

‘Right now, the Republicans continue to act as if this is a main priority. Yet none of them are showing up,’ she said.

‘I do think that it is important that I show up because if they are going to make allegations about the former commander-in-chief, egregious allegations they continue to wage. I want to make sure that I’m in the room to correct the record, because a lot of times they like to mischaracterize things.’

When asked by Fox News Digital if the interview was still ongoing as she exited, however, Crockett answered, ‘It’s still going. I’m leaving early. I’ve got to get to another thing.’

A source familiar with the ongoing proceeding told Fox News Digital that Crockett came in during Republican investigators’ round of questioning and so was unable to make inquiries herself. Fox News Digital reached out to Crockett for a response.

Williams was the former Director of Strategic Outreach under the Biden administration. She did not speak to reporters on the way into her transcribed interview.

Crockett initially caught reporters and potentially even staff off guard when she arrived for the closed-door deposition of Biden’s former White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., was there as well, as is the norm for sworn depositions.

Williams, unlike O’Connor, is not on Capitol Hill under subpoena.

During her Wednesday appearance, Crockett declared she never had any concerns about Biden’s mental state while he was president, though she did raise similar claims about Trump.

White House spokesman Harrison Fields told Fox News Digital in response to Crockett questioning Trump’s mental acuity: ‘The Democrats’ rising star has done more to cement the party’s demise than the President she breathlessly supported, the decrepit and feeble Joe Biden. Jasmine continues to prove she’d be better suited as a reality TV star on VH1 than an elected official on Capitol Hill.’

Comer is investigating accusations that Biden’s former top White House aides covered up signs of his mental and physical decline while in office, and whether any executive actions were commissioned via autopen without the president’s full knowledge. Biden allies have pushed back on those claims.

I wrote recently about the chilling jurisprudence of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has drawn the ire of colleagues in opinions for her rhetoric and extreme positions. Many have expressed alarm over her adherence to what has been described by one as an ‘imperial judiciary’ model of jurisprudence. Now, it appears that Jackson’s increasingly controversial opinions are serving a certain cathartic purpose for the far-left Biden appointee.

‘I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to tell people in my opinions how I feel about the issues, and that’s what I try to do,’ Jackson told ABC News.

Her colleagues have not entirely welcomed that sense of license. The histrionic and hyperbolic rhetoric has increased in Jackson’s opinions, which at times portray her colleagues as abandoning not just the Constitution but democracy itself.

Her dissent in the recent ruling on universal injunctions drew the rebuke of Justice Amy Coney Barrett over what was described as ‘a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush.’

‘We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,’ Barrett wrote. ‘We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.’

Jackson, however, clearly feels that opinions are a way for her to opine on issues of the day. 

She is not alone. Across the country, liberal judges have been adding their own commentary to decisions in order to condemn Trump, his supporters, and his policies.

I previously wrote about this pattern of extrajudicial commentary.

District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who previously presided over Trump’s election interference case, was criticized for failing to recuse herself from that case after she made highly controversial statements about Trump from the bench. Chutkan lashed out at ‘a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.’ That ‘one person’ was still under investigation at the time, and when Trump was charged, Chutkan refused to let the case go.

Later, Chutkan again added her own commentary when asked to dismiss a case due to Trump pardoning January 6 defendants. She acknowledged that she could not block the pardons, but proclaimed that the pardons could not change the ‘tragic truth’ and ‘cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake. And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.’

One of Chutkan’s colleagues, Judge Beryl Howell, also an Obama appointee, lashed out at Trump’s actions, writing, ‘[T]his Court cannot let stand the revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement.’

Then there is Judge Amit Mehta, another Obama appointee, who has been criticized for conflicted rulings in Trump cases and his bizarre (and ultimately abandoned) effort to banish January 6 defendants from the Capitol.

Last week, Mehta had a straightforward question of jurisdiction concerning a challenge to the denial of grants by the Trump administration. While correctly dismissing the challenge, Mehta decided to add his own commentary on Trump’s priorities and policies:

‘Defendants’ rescinding of these awards is shameful. It is likely to harm communities and individuals vulnerable to crime and violence. But displeasure and sympathy are not enough in a court of law.’

For Jackson, her opinions have at times left her isolated on the Court. Weeks ago, Jackson and Sotomayor were alone in dissent over the defiance of a district court judge of the Court’s decision on universal injunctions. To her credit, Justice Elena Kagan (who voted with Sotomayor and Jackson in dissent in the earlier case) voted with her conservative colleagues in rebuking Judge Brian Murphy in Boston.

Kagan joined in the reversal of Murphy’s conflicting order and wrote the new order ‘clarifies only one thing: Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial.’

This week, Jackson lost even Sotomayor and stood alone in her dissent in support of an injunction over plans to downsize the government. Sotomayor observed that the Trump order only directed agencies to plan for such downsizing and said that the courts could hardly enjoin such policy preparations in the Executive Branch.

However, Jackson could and would. 

The controversial position of Jackson on the Court is not due to her liberal views. We have had many such liberal jurists. The difference is how Jackson views her role as a justice.

The danger is not confined to opinions. For years, justices have yielded to the temptations of public speaking before supportive groups. I have long been a critic of what I called the era of ‘celebrity justices,’ where members seem to maintain political constituencies at public events. 

Such speeches not only undermine the integrity of the Court by discussing matters that may come before it, but they can create a desire to maintain the adoration of supporters. The greatest danger is that justices will consciously or subconsciously pander to their bases with soundbites and inflammatory rhetoric.

Judicial advocacy from the bench has been a concern since the founding. Article III can have a corrosive impact on certain jurists who come to view themselves as anointed rather than appointed. Most judges and justices are acutely aware of that danger and struggle to confine their rulings to the merits of disputes, avoiding political questions or commentary.

The ‘opportunity to tell people how I feel’ can become a slippery slope where opinions become more like judicial op-eds. The Court is not a cable show. The price of the ticket to being ‘one of nine’ is that you should speak only through your opinions and only on the narrow legal matter before you. 

Opinions must remain ‘opportunities’ to do simple justice, not a supreme editorial.