A longtime confidant of former President Joe Biden revealed to House Oversight Committee investigators that he could have earned up to $8 million had Biden secured re-election in 2024, according to a source familiar with the exchange, speaking to Fox News Digital.
Michael Donilon, who served as a senior advisor throughout Biden’s presidency, has worked with him since 1981 when Biden was a U.S. senator from Delaware. His testimony is part of a broader House Oversight probe into whether members of Biden’s inner circle concealed evidence of his alleged cognitive decline and whether executive actions were signed using an autopen without the president’s full awareness.
According to the source, Donilon said he was unaware of the autopen’s use and did not recall knowing anything about it.
As chief strategist for both Biden’s 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns, Donilon reportedly received $4 million for his work on the 2024 effort. That figure was reported in the book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again by Axios journalist Alex Thompson and CNN anchor Jake Tapper. Had Biden won re-election, Donilon’s total earnings from the campaign could have reached $8 million.
Biden ultimately exited the 2024 race following a widely criticized debate performance against Donald Trump in June of that year, a decision made after mounting pressure from Democrats across the political spectrum.
Donilon reportedly told investigators he believed the reaction to Biden’s debate performance was overblown by political pundits and Democratic lawmakers. He also claimed that Biden’s communication abilities actually improved during his time in office.
“During his interview, Mr. Donilon admitted that Joe Biden’s presence wasn’t as commanding, and he could stumble over more words,” the source said. “Mr. Donilon stated he was frustrated and knew it was difficult to get past the visuals of President Biden that people were seeing.”
In an opening statement obtained by Fox News Digital, Donilon reflected on his four-decade partnership with Biden, highlighting what he described as significant achievements by the administration, including pandemic recovery, job growth, and the Inflation Reduction Act.
“I was with President Joe Biden from his first day in office to the last day. What I saw, day in and day out, was a leader who was deeply engaged and in command on critical issues, both at home and abroad,” Donilon stated.
“Every President ages over the four years of a presidency and President Biden did as well, but he also continued to grow stronger and wiser as a leader as a result of being tested by some of the most difficult challenges any President has ever faced.
I thought that experience was enormously valuable for the nation. I believed that President Biden was the best person to lead the country on the day he took the oath of office and I continued to believe that was true every day he served as President.”
Donilon is now the eighth former Biden administration official to testify as part of the investigation being led by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.
Meanwhile, a source close to the Biden team previously dismissed the Republican-led probe as “dangerous” and accused it of being a politically motivated attempt to discredit Biden’s legacy.
“And their hope is for just one tiny inconsistency between witnesses to appear so that Trump’s DOJ prosecute his political opponents and continue his campaign of revenge,” the source said.
