Former President Joe Biden has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Justice Department to keep hours of recordings tied to the classified documents investigation from becoming public.
The lawsuit centers on interviews Biden gave in 2016 and 2017 to ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer while working on his memoirs. Those recordings later became part of special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents from his time as a senator and as vice president.
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Hur’s investigation ultimately recommended no criminal charges, but his report sparked a major political firestorm after raising questions about Biden’s memory and describing him as a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.
Audio recordings of Biden’s conversations with Hur only spurred those questions, revealing lapses in the former president’s memory.
Violating privacy rights
Now, Biden’s attorneys say the Justice Department plans to release the transcripts to Congress and the Heritage Foundation in June, after previously arguing they were exempt from disclosure under public records law.
Biden’s attorneys argue that releasing the material would violate his privacy rights, saying the conversations took place inside his home and were obtained through a criminal investigation.
“Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” his attorneys wrote. “And when the U.S. Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the Department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure.”
Trump weighed in late Tuesday on Truth Social, calling Biden a “crooked politician.”
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