Joe Biden has initiated legal proceedings against the Justice Department under Donald Trump’s administration, seeking to prevent the disclosure of audio tapes he recorded with his ghostwriter. These recordings were later scrutinized to assess Biden’s mental acuity.
The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in a federal courtroom, emerges just ahead of the Justice Department’s scheduled release of these potentially incendiary tapes and transcripts to Republican legislators and the conservative group, the Heritage Foundation.
In 2016 and 2017, Biden engaged in personal discussions with his biographer, Mark Zwonitzer, at his residence while authoring his book, “Promise Me, Dad.” The memoir explores his contemplation of a presidential campaign during the period his eldest son, Beau, was battling brain cancer.
Special Counsel Robert Hur acquired approximately 70 hours of these recordings during an inquiry into Biden’s management of classified information.
The investigation concluded that Biden had read classified documents aloud to Zwonitzer but advised against legal action, citing Biden’s impaired memory as a barrier to demonstrating intentional misconduct.
These recordings were pivotal in Hur’s stunning revelation in February 2024, describing Biden, at 81, as “an elderly man with a poor memory.” This striking portrayal came at a crucial moment in Biden’s re-election campaign, fueling debate about his capability to undertake a second term.
The recordings capture Biden telling Zwonitzer on tape, ‘I just found all the classified stuff downstairs,’ and, according to Hur’s report, the former vice president read journal entries containing classified intelligence ‘nearly verbatim’ on at least three occasions.
Court filings have also revealed Zwonitzer deleted some of the audio after learning of Hur’s appointment as special counsel in 2023, however, investigators later recovered the material.
Trump reacted on Truth Social to Biden’s attempt to keep the tapes under wraps by branding his predecessor ‘A Crooked Politician!!!’
Joe Biden has sued Donald Trump’s Justice Department to block the release of audio recordings he made with his ghostwriter, material investigators later used to question his mental competency
Trump reacted on Truth Social to Biden’s attempt to keep the tapes under wraps by branding his predecessor ‘A Crooked Politician!!!’
Hur determined that Biden read classified material out loud to Zwonitzer but recommended against prosecution because Biden’s declining memory would make it difficult to prove he had acted willfully
Biden’s legal team argued the release of the tapes would amount to ‘an unwarranted invasion of President Biden’s privacy.’
‘Every American, including a sitting or former vice president, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,’ Biden’s attorneys wrote.
Biden’s legal team argued that when the Justice Department obtains private information through a criminal investigation, it must shield that material from public disclosure.
The tapes at issue are distinct from Hur’s own interview of Biden, which the former president has also fought to keep from being publicly released.
Although Hur’s investigation recommended no charges, it was damning for Biden during his reelection effort in 2024 against Trump.
The Biden probe was launched in January 2023 after classified documents from his time as vice president were discovered at his former Washington office and his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland reacted by appointing Robert Hur as special counsel.
Material taken from Biden’s home included classified documents concerning US military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, as well as notebooks containing Biden’s handwritten entries on national security and foreign policy.
Despite Biden’s mishandling of classified material, the special counsel recommended against charges, writing that the former president would ‘present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’
Hur added, ‘it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.’
