Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 89, is not clear of the Ramsay Hunt syndrome she developed due to shingles, which can result in facial paralysis and hearing loss.
Additionally, she experienced encephalitis, which causes the brain to enlarge.
Feinstein was seen wheelchair-bound when she finally returned to work 60 days after hiding out at her home in California. She and her staff, however, make enormous efforts to hide her actual state of health and insist that she is doing just well.
On Wednesday, a Los Angeles Times photographer said that Feinstein’s staff shouted at him as he attempted to snap a picture of the senator.
The photog said they took a picture of the senator as they attempted to conceal her wheelchair behind concrete columns at a discrete exit.
Even though they already moved back 30 feet from the senator, a Capitol Police officer yelled at the journalist.
As she was led to a waiting car, surrounded by a human barrier, Feinstein waved, according to photographer Kent Nishimura.
Nishimura said that Feinstein is being shielded from the media by Senate security at significant lengths.
The Senate sergeant-at-arms office declared that her arrival at the Capitol was “closed press,” closing doors and escorting journalists out of halls and public areas with the help of Capitol police.
This extraordinary restriction on journalistic freedom creates more curiosity, said Nishimura.
In a letter to the editor, Nishimura stated that since her return, Feinstein’s “staff’s efforts to protect” her from the media had “ratcheted up.”
He said her staff had used every trick in the book to remain out of sight from the press. She seldom speaks in public at committee hearings and is frequently flanked by personnel. Additionally, they often act as a physical barrier between her and the media, with one staff member pushing her wheelchair and others yelling at the cameras to move out of the way.
Additionally, Feinstein’s team has discovered a means to avoid the media. The senator is now accompanied to areas other than the Senate chamber, where cameras are prohibited. Her office requested that Capitol Hill security keep the journalists as far away from her as possible.
Since she returned to the Senate, Feinstein’s mental capacity has come under scrutiny. When questioned by reporters about her protracted absence and how her coworkers responded upon her return, she provided a strange response.
She said, “No, I haven’t been gone,” according to Slate. I haven’t been away; I’ve been working.
She must have been working with Biden.
