Lawmakers Question Dianne Feinstein's Mental Fitness: Report

SAN FRANCISCO — Four U.S. senators, three former staffers and a Democratic California member of Congress are questioning the mental fitness of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, according to a report.

Feinstein, the Senate's oldest sitting senator at 88, has faced cognitive questions in recent years, including in December 2020, when she told the Los Angeles Times she didn't feel her cognitive abilities had diminished.

"Do I forget something sometimes? Quite possibly," she said at the time.

Concerns over the senator's mental fitness resurfaced this week. Several lawmakers and former staffers told the San Francisco Chronicle they feel Feinstein can no longer fulfill her job duties without her staff doing the bulk of the work. Each spoke on condition of anonymity, the newspaper said, because they didn't want to risk ruining their relationship with Feinstein and their mutual acquaintances.

Feinstein's term runs through 2024, when she'll be 91.

The California Democrat in Congress told the newspaper that in a recent discussion with Feinstein, the senator repeated small-talk questions and the lawmaker had to reintroduce themselves to Feinstein multiple times.

“I have worked with her for a long time and long enough to know what she was like just a few years ago: always in command, always in charge, on top of the details, basically couldn’t resist a conversation where she was driving some bill or some idea. All of that is gone,” the lawmaker told the newspaper. “She was an intellectual and political force not that long ago, and that’s why my encounter with her was so jarring. Because there was just no trace of that.”

Feinstein told the newspaper in a statement March 28 there’s "no question I’m still serving and delivering for the people of California, and I’ll put my record up against anyone’s.”

Click here to read the full article by the San Francisco Chronicle.