Joe Biden, the former president of the United States, has initiated legal action to prevent the justice department (DoJ) from releasing transcripts and audio recordings of interviews that highlighted his frequent memory lapses and contributed to the collapse of his 2024 re-election campaign.
Background of the Lawsuit
The decade-old conversations with his biographer, Mark Zwonitzer, ultimately fell into the hands of Robert Hur, the special counsel tasked with investigating allegations that Biden mishandled classified documents. Hur examined the files and conducted a five-hour interview with Biden, concluding in a 2024 report to Congress that no criminal wrongdoing had occurred. However, the report described the then 81-year-old president as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
Following persistent scrutiny of his age and mental fitness, Biden withdrew from the 2024 election and endorsed Kamala Harris, who went on to become the unsuccessful Democratic nominee.
Legal Arguments
Biden's lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in federal court in Washington DC, accuses the DoJ of an "unwarranted invasion of President Biden's privacy." It seeks to halt the department from releasing the materials to the Republican-controlled House judiciary committee and the conservative Heritage Foundation. The DoJ had previously fought to keep the transcripts and recordings confidential.
"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 regarding the 2016 and 2017 discussions with Zwonitzer, who collaborated with Biden on two memoirs. "And when the US Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the Department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure."
The Hur Investigation
The recordings, made during and after Biden's tenure as vice-president under Barack Obama, were scrutinised by Hur, a Republican. His report concluded that Biden "willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen," including documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, but determined that criminal charges were not warranted.
Biden welcomed the 345-page report but disputed Hur's characterisation of his memory as "significantly limited" due to his inability to recall key events and facts. "My memory is fine," Biden told a reporter in February 2024, noting that his interview with Hur occurred shortly after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. "I was in the middle of handling an international crisis."
Previous Efforts to Block Release
Biden had separately fought the release of the audio from his interview with Hur, portions of which were leaked last year. In 2024, the Republican-controlled House voted to hold Merrick Garland, Biden's attorney general, in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over the audio after the White House asserted executive privilege to shield it from Congress.
While Biden insisted he treated classified information seriously, the transcript reveals he was occasionally unclear about dates and details, and he admitted unfamiliarity with the paper trail for some sensitive documents he handled.
Political Context
Republicans argue that Biden was given preferential treatment by his own justice department, while Donald Trump, who faced similar allegations of improperly taking classified documents and storing them at his Mar-a-Lago resort, was unfairly targeted by prosecutors. Trump was investigated by another special counsel, Jack Smith, and charged in a case ultimately dismissed by Aileen Cannon, a Florida judge he appointed. In February, Cannon blocked the justice department from ever publishing Smith's report on the investigation.
Democrats have emphasised Biden's cooperation with the investigation, contrasting it with Trump's alleged refusal to return classified documents requested by the National Archives.
