A Navy sailor was disciplined for trying unsuccessfully to gain unauthorized access to President Biden’s restricted medical records earlier this year, a military official said on Tuesday.
The attempted breach happened 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, whom it did not identify, searched the name “Joseph Biden” three times in a military health system electronic database within a span of several hours “out of curiosity.” The disciplinary action was first reported by ABC News.
Mr. Biden, 81, has faced a renewed bout of questions about his health and mental acuity after his June 27 debate performance, which has prompted a growing number of Democrats to call on him to end his re-election bid.
In the Navy incident, a co-worker of the sailor reported the potential violation of medical privacy laws, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service conducted an investigation that concluded on April 24, Commander Hawkins said.
“The record the sailor accessed was not the electronic record 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 declined to detail the disciplinary action it had taken.
The Biden 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 featuring the two oldest major-party nominees for president in history, neither Mr. Biden nor former President Donald J. Trump has given the public unfettered access to his medical charts.
In recent days, the Biden administration has faced questions about why an expert on Parkinson’s disease from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center visited the White House eight times in eight months, from last summer through this spring, including at least once for a meeting with President Biden’s physician.
The visits by the expert, Dr. Kevin Cannard, a neurologist, were detailed in White House visitor logs.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the White House physician, said in a statement on Monday night that Mr. Biden had seen Dr. Cannard each year as part of his overall annual physical checkup and that the latest examination had found no sign of Parkinson’s.
Emily Baumgaertner and Peter Baker contributed reporting.
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