Jill Biden to attend memorial services for father of White House deputy chief of staff and husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein

By Kate Bennett, CNN

First lady Jill Biden on Friday is scheduled to attend memorial services for the father of White House deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon and the husband of Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the first lady’s spokesperson confirmed to CNN.

The service for Kevin O’Malley, who died on March 1 after a battle with cancer, will take place in Boston. Later on Friday, the first lady is scheduled to fly to San Francisco to attend a memorial service for Richard Blum, who died last week of cancer, her press secretary Michael LaRosa tells CNN.

The first lady will spend the night in San Francisco and on Tuesday morning will headline a Democratic National Committee fundraiser at a private residence, according to LaRosa. This will mark the first in-person fundraiser she has attended as first lady. Biden has participated in several virtual fundraisers over the last year, due to the pandemic.

O’Malley Dillon is part of Biden’s closest circle of top aides in the White House. She was Biden’s campaign manager in the 2020 presidential election and helped turn a shoestring primary organization that was struggling to raise money into a general election machine that defeated President Donald Trump. O’Malley Dillon made history as the first woman to have led a winning Democratic presidential race.

In a White House statement, President Joe Biden said that during his 16 years serving with Feinstein on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he and Jill Biden came to know Blum “as a friend.”

Biden described Blum as “a successful businessman and proud son of California who dedicated much of his public life to fighting poverty around the globe.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Kate Sullivan contributed to this report.