There have been a lot of surprises coming out of Washington, particularly from Donald Trump.

But the latest is from Joe Biden, and it’s a blockbuster.

It was the revelation by his office that the 82-year-old former president was suffering from an aggressive form of prostate cancer. It is treatable but not curable, according to specialists.

The news came following a couple of negative Biden stories and books about his diminished mental capacity while president written by reporters who previously covered up for him.

It also came after the release by the U.S. Justice Department of the audio of Biden’s 2023 five-hour, two-day interview by special counsel Robert Hur.

The interview was part of an investigation into whether Biden improperly retained classified documents after he left office as vice president and when he was a U.S. senator.

Biden came across as so confused about vital dates and events that Hur recommended in his report that, evidence aside, no charges be filed against Biden because a jury would find Biden to be “a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”

While the text of the interview had been previously released, the audio was far more damaging. Speaking in a halting, frail voice Biden comes across as a confused, rambling old man who cannot remember when he left office as vice president, when Trump was first elected or when is son Beau died.

Politics has become so brutal in the divided country that some former Biden defenders have even turned on him, suggesting that the release of Biden’s cancer diagnosis was timed to offset the negative reaction to the release of the audio interview.

“The timing is just extraordinary,” CNN host Brian Stelter said. He added that the medical news also came upon publication of the book “Original Sin” by fellow CNN host Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson which is a belated tale about Biden’s mental deterioration when he was president.

The writers, among other things, write that Biden failed to recognize actor George Clooney at a June 2024 fundraiser Clooney cohosted, which they did not report at the time.

The book, and others like it, fall in the “Now they tell us” category when they, as well as other Washington reporters, knew all along that Biden was mentally failing, yet colluded to keep quiet about it.

Now they are shamelessly out to make a buck since Biden is out of the White House.

The Bidens have elicited some sympathy during these hard times. They are going to need it because their worries continue to mount.

For instance, adding to the bad Biden press, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Republican, will hold hearings over Biden’s use of an autopen to issue last minute controversial pardons before he left office.

The committee inquiry centers on whether Biden was mentally fit to authorize a staffer to use the signing device on pardon documents or whether Jill Biden or aides issued the pardons on their own.

“We just want to figure out who gave the orders,” Comer said, “if anybody gave the orders.”

The problem with all of this is that Comer and others, including the media, will now all be ganging up on Joe Biden now that he is facing life-threatening cancer, thereby turning him into more of a sad and beaten figure than he already is.

It seems certain that Jill Biden and a small staff of White House functionaries, with the collusion of the press and Democrat politicians, covered up for Joe Biden’s mental decline when he was president.

It is one of the biggest scandals in U.S history.

With ailing Biden out of the picture, do the Republicans who control Congress now go after “co-president” Jill Biden?

That could backfire.

Veteran political figure Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostoherald.com