The audiotapes informed a special counsel report that called Biden an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
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A federal appeals court has cleared the way for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to obtain redacted transcripts and audio recordings of former president Joe Biden’s conversations with the writer who helped prepare his 2017 memoir.
The recordings were made during Biden’s conversations with writer Mark Zwonitzer in 2016 and 2017. They were later obtained by special counsel Robert K. Hur as part of his investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents. Hur declined to bring criminal charges.
In his report, Hur said Biden had struggled during interviews to recall when his vice presidency began and ended, when his son Beau died, and details of policy debates that had once been important to him. Hur wrote that a jury would probably view Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and could have difficulty finding that he had willfully retained classified material.
The Heritage Foundation requested the recordings and transcripts under the Freedom of Information Act in February 2024, as Biden sought reelection. The group sued the Justice Department that April after the records were not produced.
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Biden’s postpresidential office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the court’s ruling.
In a 2-1 decision released Monday night, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that Biden had not shown he was likely to succeed in arguing that releasing the material would violate federal privacy law.
The majority said the public has a substantial interest in examining the evidence that informed Hur’s decision, particularly because the investigation involved a former president and ended without charges. Releasing the underlying material, the judges wrote, would allow the public to assess Hur’s descriptions and conclusions rather than relying solely on his report.
The recordings will not be released immediately. The court kept a temporary injunction in place through Aug. 3, giving Biden time to seek further review from the full D.C. Circuit or the Supreme Court.
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