Former US President Joe Biden on Tuesday appealed to the Department of Justice, calling for federal judge to stop the release of audio recordings and transcripts of his conversations with the ghostwriter of his memoir issued in 2017.
The legal case began with a 2024 request by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which asked the government to release records related to Joe Biden’s conversations with Mark Zwonitzer, the writer who helped him work on the book Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.
Earlier, the Justice Department denied the sought-after materials, saying they were exempt from disclosure.
Biden’s attorney Amy Jeffress wrote in Tuesday’s lawsuit in the US District Court for Washington, DC, that the department “has reversed that position” during President Donald Trump’s second term.
“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 (Freedom of Information Act) Action,” in February, Jeffress said.
“The Office of the Deputy Attorney General informed President Biden, through counsel, that the Department had made a final decision to release the materials, with limited redactions, to the Heritage Plaintiffs and to Congress on June 15,” Biden’s lawsuit said on May 5.
“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.
“That year was among the most consequential of President Biden’s political life and the most painful of his personal life.”
Such personal information is exempt from disclosure under FOIA laws, Biden noted.
“Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” Jeffress wrote in the lawsuit.
The Heritage Foundation requested all records that former special counsel Robert Hur used when drafting specific sections of his 2023 report on Biden’s handling of classified documents.
Those sections portrayed Biden as moving “painfully slow” and having difficulty recalling events, as well as sometimes struggling to read and recount entries from his own notebooks.
Audio from Hur’s interview with Biden about classified documents kept after his vice presidency appeared to support claims that Biden had memory lapses, despite White House officials denying such concerns at the time. Hur ultimately chose not to bring criminal charges against Biden.
The Justice Department and Zwonitzer did not immediately answer requests for comment. Trump also commented on the lawsuit on his social media platform Truth Social, describing Biden as “a Crooked Politician.”
Unless a court steps in, the materials are scheduled to be released on June 15.