It is impossible to believe that they did not see this coming and all this is just panic.
I am undecided on what they knew and when they knew it.
The WH can quickly develop into a cult and/or bunker mentality.
Part of this is institutional—the national security state has gotten so out of hand that almost everything is compartmentalized and “need to know” which creates a culture of silence, secrecy and even intrigue.
Once you get skilled at keeping one set of secrets it is easy to drift into keeping other types of secrets.
Dementia is always a crap shoot—victims can perform ok for years and then crash and burn on a dime—or the decline can be so gradual that people close to Joe might not notice the change on a day to day basis.
Remember—they were lying about Joe’s mental state in 2020—they got in the habit of it.