WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court has turned down Joe Biden’s bid to prevent the release of audio recordings and transcripts from interviews he gave to a ghostwriter years before winning the presidency.
In a split decision, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit put its ruling on hold until Aug. 3, giving Biden additional time to decide whether to pursue another appeal.
The 2-1 ruling, issued late Monday, said the public has a “substantial” interest in seeing the materials Biden has sought to keep private. The majority also pointed to planned redactions as a way to reduce the impact on Biden’s personal privacy.
“We conclude that any remaining incursion on personal privacy from disclosure of the now-redacted materials likely does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure,” the court wrote.
Judge Florence Pan, a Biden nominee, dissented, arguing that the former president had demonstrated a “substantial privacy interest” in keeping the interviews from public release.
“The conversations at issue took place in Biden’s home, and the recordings of them were obtained by the government in the course of a criminal investigation that did not lead to an indictment,” Pan wrote.
The case was also considered by D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judge Gregory Katsas. Srinivasan was nominated by President Barack Obama, the Democrat who selected Biden as his vice president. Katsas was nominated by President Donald Trump, the Republican who lost to Biden in 2020 before returning to the White House in 2024.
The interviews were conducted in 2016 and 2017 by Mark Zwonitzer, who collaborated with Biden on two memoirs. Biden’s attorneys have said the discussions, held at his home, were candid, deeply personal and meant to remain confidential.
The recordings were obtained by special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents from his time as a senator from Delaware and as Obama’s vice president. Republicans in Congress demanded the material after Hur declined to file charges against the then-president.
Biden sued and sought an injunction to prevent the Justice Department under Trump from releasing the recordings to Congress and the conservative Heritage Foundation. The department previously argued that the recordings were exempt from disclosure under public records law.
Biden appealed after U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, who was nominated by Trump, ruled in June that the public interest in the material outweighed whatever privacy rights Biden had.
Pan noted that the majority is effectively ruling in favor of immediately disclosing the material by denying Biden’s request for an injunction pending appeal.
“That, of course, will moot this case,” she wrote.
