Former President Joe Biden has launched a legal challenge to prevent the Justice Department from releasing transcripts and audio recordings of interviews that revealed his memory lapses and impacted his 2024 re-election campaign.
The decade-old conversations with his biographer, Mark Zwonitzer, came into the possession of special counsel Robert Hur during his investigation into allegations that Biden mishandled classified documents.
Hur conducted a five-hour interview with Biden and produced a 2024 report to Congress concluding that while Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” after leaving office, no criminal charges were warranted. However, the report characterized the then-81-year-old president as “an elderly man with a poor memory.”
Biden subsequently withdrew from the 2024 race amid concerns about his age and mental acuity, endorsing Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Washington, D.C. federal court, accuses the Justice Department of an “unwarranted invasion of President Biden’s privacy” and seeks to block disclosure to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee and conservative Heritage Foundation.
“Every American, including a former vice president, has a right to privacy in personal conversations held within his own home,” his attorneys argued. “When the Department of Justice obtains private information through a criminal investigation, it bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure.”
The recordings, made during and after Biden’s vice presidency under Barack Obama, were reviewed amid Hur’s probe. While finding Biden improperly retained classified materials including sensitive Afghanistan-related documents, Hur recommended no prosecution.
Biden accepted the report but disputed Hur’s characterization of his memory, telling reporters in February 2024 that he was “handling an international crisis” following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel when interviewed by Hur.
Biden has previously fought release of the audio, portions of which were leaked last year. The Republican-controlled House voted in 2024 to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for refusing to hand over the audio after the White House invoked executive privilege.
Republicans argue Biden received preferential treatment from his own Justice Department compared to Donald Trump, who faces charges related to classified document retention at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s separate special counsel investigation, led by Jack Smith, was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who blocked publication of Smith’s report.
Democrats highlighted Biden’s cooperation with investigators versus Smith’s case against Trump, who was accused of refusing to return classified materials to the National Archives.
