A Navy sailor has been disciplined for unsuccessfully trying to gain unauthorized access to President Biden’s confidential medical records earlier this year, a military official said Tuesday.
The attempted break-in occurred on Feb. 23, said Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a Navy spokesman, who specified that the sailor involved was assigned to Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command at Fort Belvoir in Northern Virginia.
According to the Navy, the sailor, who was not named, looked up the name “Joseph Biden” three times within a few hours in an electronic database of the military health system “out of curiosity.” The disciplinary action was initially taken reported by ABC News.
Biden, 81, is facing renewed questions about his health and mental acuity following his June 27 debate performance, leading more Democrats to call on him to end his re-election campaign.
In the Navy incident, a fellow sailor reported a possible violation of medical privacy laws. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service conducted an investigation that concluded April 24, Commander Hawkins said.
“The file the sailor had access to was not the electronic file of the President of the United States,” Commander Hawkins said in an email, adding: “At no time was the President’s personal information compromised.”
The Navy would not provide details about the disciplinary action it had taken.
Biden’s campaign referred questions about the matter to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
In a race between the two oldest major-party presidential candidates in history, neither Mr. Biden nor former President Donald J. Trump have given the public unfettered access to their medical records.
In recent days, the Biden administration has faced questions about why a Parkinson’s disease expert from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center visited the White House eight times in the eight-month period from last summer through this spring, including at least once to meet with Biden’s physician.
The visits by the expert, Dr. Kevin Cannard, a neurologist, were detailed in the White House visitor logs.
White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor said in a statement Monday night that Biden had seen Dr. Cannard every year as part of his annual medical checkup and that the latest exam found no signs of Parkinson’s disease.
Emily Baumgaertner And Peter Bakker contributed to the reporting.
