A Pentagon-funded think tank has warned that dementia impacting US President Joe Biden could pose a “national security risk.”
In a report on Tuesday, the American non-profit news organization The Intercept named several prominent US officials, including the US president, as those who could cause potential national security concern due to their dementia.
The report cited the results published in April of a first-of-its-kind study conducted by the National Security Research Division of the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit global policy think tank and research institute.
The researchers were able to identify several instances where senior intelligence officials succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive brain disorder and the primary cause of dementia.
“Individuals who hold or held a security clearance and handled classified material could become a security threat if they develop dementia and unwittingly share government secrets,” said the non-partisan American research and development institute, which is mainly financed by the US government, in its study.
The study sounded the alert as high-ranking officials with current or former access to the nation’s most highly classified intelligence could pose threats to national security, citing the possibility that they may unwittingly disclose government secrets.
The research did not mention any US officials by name but its timing comes amid a simmering debate about gerontocracy, or rule by the elderly.
“Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who had a second freezing episode last month, enjoys the most privileged access to classified information of anyone in Congress as a member of the so-called Gang of Eight congressional leadership. Ninety-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whose decline has seen her confused about how to vote and experiencing memory lapses — forgetting conversations and not recalling a months-long absence – was for years a member of the Gang of Eight and remains a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on which she has served since 2001,” The Intercept said in its report.
As commander in chief, 80-year-old Biden has demonstrated many instances of disorientation, trip-and-fall, and memory lapses. The president is the nation’s ultimate classification authority, with the extraordinary power to classify and declassify information broadly.
The president’s age has emerged as a clear concern to voters, including Democrats.
Biden is the oldest president in US history. In April, he announced his 2024 reelection campaign setting the scene for a rematch against his Republican predecessor Donald Trump, who has claimed Biden cannot pass a cognitive test.
The incumbent president has also faced growing questions about his age and whether he is up for a full campaign season and four more years in office.
Biden’s age makes his re-election bid a historic and risky gamble for the Democratic Party, which faces a tough election map to hold the Senate in 2024 and is currently the minority in the House of Representatives.
Last month, an Associated Press-NORC poll found that Democrats say Biden is “too old to effectively serve” another term.
A poll conducted in December had also found virtually 60 percent of registered voters in the US were seriously concerned about Biden’s mental fitness, citing frequent instances in which Biden had appeared to be completely disoriented in public.
