Biden Moves to Block Release of 70 Hours of Audio Recordings With Ghostwriter – RedState
Former President Joe Biden plans to go to court to stop the Trump administration from releasing about 70 hours of partially redacted audio recordings of his conversations with a ghostwriter, the Justice Department said Friday in new court filings.
DOJ lawyers told U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich that they expected Biden to seek to “prevent any such disclosure” of the recordings to Congress and the conservative Heritage Foundation, which filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to the documents. The Justice Department set Tuesday as the deadline for Biden to file a lawsuit and agreed to delay any release until June 15 if he does so.
A Biden spokesperson confirmed Sunday that the former president plans to oppose the release.
“President Biden fully cooperated with Special Advisor Hur and agreed to provide audio recordings of conversations with his biographer for a book about his deceased son on the condition that they not be made public,” spokesman TJ Ducklo said in a statement. “The DOJ itself has stated that these recordings serve no public interest.”
What is audio and why it matters
The recordings were collected by investigators working for special counsel Robert Hur, who was appointed by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in January 2023 to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents. The investigation began after documents were discovered at a University of Pennsylvania think tank. Biden had been affiliated with the post-vice presidency and then at his home in Delaware.
Mark Zwonitzer, a writer and documentarian, worked with Biden on two memoirs: “Promises to Keep,” published in 2007, and “Promise Me, Dad,” published in 2017. The latter book dealt with the death of Biden’s son, Beau. The audio in question was recorded during the sessions of this second brief.
Hur’s report, released in February 2024, concluded that Biden “deliberately retained and disclosed classified documents” but declined to press charges, citing Biden’s cooperation with the investigation and the likelihood that a jury would view him as an “older, sympathetic, well-meaning man with a poor memory.”
The recordings the DOJ is now seeking to release reportedly include sessions in which Biden read aloud from notebooks that officials later determined contained classified entries. According to exchanges cited in Hur’s report, the audio also shows Biden telling Zwonitzer: “I just found all the classified stuff down there.” »
Biden has repeatedly disputed this characterization. “I did not share classified information,” he said in February 2024. “I guarantee you I did not.”
Recordings and transcripts that the Justice Department plans to make public would have to be edited for confidentiality purposes and to remove any underlying classified information before release.
Ghostwriter attempted to delete records
Zwonitzer didn’t just hand over the recordings. According to Hur’s report, he moved the audio files to the trash on his computer after learning that a special counsel had been appointed. Investigators recovered the recordings, and Zwonitzer was later granted immunity from prosecutors in exchange for his cooperation.
Hur considered it but ultimately declined to charge Zwonitzer with obstruction of justice, finding insufficient evidence to prove criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt.
Biden’s legal arguments are uncertain
Biden’s lawyers have not yet said what legal arguments they plan to make. Potential avenues include arguing that the recordings are personal rather than federal records, or that releasing them would violate his privacy. However, these arguments are unlikely to block disclosure to Congress.
To prevent Congress from obtaining the recordings, Biden would have to argue that lawmakers are unfairly targeting him because of his former position and that the documents are not necessary for legitimate legislation.
There is relevant precedent. In a 2020 Supreme Court ruling regarding House requests for Donald Trump’s financial records, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that “Congressional requests for the President’s records may implicate the relationships between the branches, whether those records are personal or official.” The case was returned to lower courts to assess Congress’s necessity and Trump’s interest in avoiding harassment, and the parties ultimately reached a settlement in which a limited set of documents was produced.
The Heritage Foundation continues
The Heritage Foundation Monitoring Project filed the first FOIA lawsuit to obtain the documents. Mike Howell, president of the project, had little patience with Biden’s decision on Sunday.
“These recordings will further prove the massive lie regarding Biden’s fitness for office and the fact that Biden revealed classified information,” Howell said. “The shenanigans are not over: at the last possible second, and after all possible delaying tactics, automatic opening stands in the way of transparency for the American people.”
Biden’s office responded by pointing to a separate set of documents that the Trump administration has not released. “What’s happening right now is not about transparency. It’s about politics,” Ducklo said, calling on the administration to release volume 2 of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. “This report contains information that Americans really deserve to see.”
