Former President Joe Biden sued the Justice Department on Tuesday in an effort to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of private conversations with the ghostwriter of his 2017 memoir.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., challenges the Justice Department’s decision to release recordings and transcripts of Biden’s interviews with writer Mark Zwonitzer to Congress and the conservative Heritage Foundation on June 15.
The dispute stems from a 2024 Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Heritage Foundation seeking records tied to former special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents.
According to the lawsuit, the Justice Department had previously argued the materials were exempt from disclosure under federal public records law. Biden attorney Amy Jeffress wrote that the department reversed its position during President Donald Trump’s second term.
“In February, without any formal explanation for its about-face, the Department notified President Biden of its intention to release the audio recordings and transcripts to the plaintiffs in the FOIA Action,” the lawsuit states, per NBC News.
Jeffress said the Office of the Deputy Attorney General later informed Biden’s legal team on May 5 that the department had made a final decision to release the materials, with limited redactions, on June 15.
The recordings involve conversations Biden had with Zwonitzer in 2016 and 2017 while working on his memoir, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.
“In President Biden’s conversations with Zwonitzer and, ultimately, in his memoir, he recounted the year of his life that began during the Thanksgiving holiday in 2014,” Jeffress wrote, per NBC. “That year was among the most consequential of President Biden’s political life and the most painful of his personal life.”
Biden’s attorneys argued the material contains deeply personal discussions protected from disclosure under FOIA exemptions.
“Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” the lawsuit states. “And when the U.S. Department of Justice obtains the private information through a criminal investigation, the Department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure.”
Hur reviewed the interviews as part of his investigation into Biden’s retention of classified documents from his time as a senator and vice president. His 2023 report described Biden as “painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries,” NBC reported.
Hur ultimately declined to bring criminal charges, saying there was insufficient evidence to secure a conviction.
Transcripts of Biden’s interviews with federal prosecutors were released last year and showed the former President at times struggling to recall dates and details involving classified materials.
The issue previously sparked a political fight in Congress. In 2024, the House voted to hold then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress after the Justice Department refused to release audio recordings from Hur’s interview with Biden following the White House’s assertion of executive privilege.
Trump responded to Biden’s latest lawsuit Tuesday night on Truth Social, calling the former President “A Crooked Politician!!!”
