On Tuesday, Joe Biden initiated legal action against the Justice Department to prevent the release of audio recordings and transcripts from an interview he conducted with a ghostwriter. These materials were collected by the special counsel investigating his approach to handling classified documents.
In a lawsuit presented to Washington’s federal court, Biden’s legal team contended that the Justice Department intends to share these files with Congress and the Heritage Foundation, a conservative organization. This move comes despite the department’s previous stance that these documents were not subject to public disclosure laws.
Biden’s attorneys emphasized that releasing the materials would represent an “unwarranted invasion of President Biden’s privacy.”
“All citizens, whether a current or former Vice President, have a right to privacy concerning personal conversations held in their own homes,” Biden’s lawyers argued. “When the Department of Justice acquires such private information during a criminal investigation, it has a heightened duty to safeguard it from being disclosed.”
The controversy centers around audio and transcript records of discussions that took place in Biden’s home during 2016 and 2017 with Mark Zwonitzer, who partnered with Biden on his memoir projects.
The files were scrutinized by special counsel Robert Hur as part of his investigation into the president’s improper retention of classified documents, from his time as a senator and as vice president.
Hur’s yearlong investigation led to a 345-page report that questioned Biden’s age and mental competence but recommended no criminal charges against the then-81-year-old. Hur said he found insufficient evidence to successfully prosecute a case in court.
Biden has separately fought the release of the audio of his interview with Hur.
The House in 2024 voted to hold Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over that audio after the White House exerted executive privilege, shielding it from Congress.
The transcripts of five hours of Biden interviews with federal prosecutors was released that same year.
While Biden was adamant that he treated classified information seriously, the transcript shows that he was at times fuzzy about dates and details and he said he was unfamiliar with the paper trail for some of the sensitive documents he handled.
Republicans have argued Biden was being given a pass by his own Justice Department and that Trump had been unfairly victimized by prosecutors.
Democrats, for their part, stressed Biden’s cooperation in the investigation and strongly contrasted that with the separate criminal case against Trump, who was accused of refusing to return classified documents requested by the National Archives that he had at his Florida estate.