A federal appeals court has ruled against former President Joe Biden’s effort to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts from interviews he conducted with his memoir ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, in 2017. The court suspended its decision until August 3 to allow Biden additional time to consider an appeal.
The recordings, totaling approximately 70 hours, were previously sought to be kept private by Biden’s legal team. They contend the conversations were candid and personal. However, the court determined that the recordings became subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) once they were taken possession of by Special Counsel Robert Hur during his investigation into Biden’s unlawful retention of classified documents.
These recordings are central evidence in the special counsel’s investigation. In February 2024, Special Counsel Robert Hur reported that Biden exhibited “diminished faculties and faulty memory” during conversations with the former president, describing them as “painfully slow.”
Hur declined to prosecute Biden, but his report indicated that Biden would present himself to a jury as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” The court held that the recordings were obtained by the government in the course of its investigation and thus belong to the public.
The ruling came from a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which included both a Trump appointee and an Obama appointee. They found that the substantial public interest in these materials outweighed Biden’s privacy claims. A single judge on the panel dissented.
Biden is scheduled to release his memoir, “Promise Me, America,” on November 17, with an advance of approximately $10 million. The timing of this release coincides with midterm elections.
The court has granted Biden until August 3 to decide whether to appeal further. However, the recordings remain part of the public record — an unfiltered account of Joe Biden.
