On Tuesday, former U.S. President Joe Biden initiated legal action against the U.S. Department of Justice, aiming to prevent the release of audio recordings and transcripts from his private discussions with his biographer that took place in 2016 and 2017.
This lawsuit was submitted to a federal court in Washington D.C. just before the department’s scheduled release of these materials to the U.S. House judiciary committee and the conservative Heritage Foundation on June 15.
The Heritage Foundation requested these records following their use in the investigation conducted by then-special counsel Robert Hur in 2023 regarding Biden’s management of classified documents. Hur ultimately decided not to file any criminal charges.
According to the lawsuit, the department contested the Heritage Foundation’s request for these records in 2024, arguing that they were exempt from the Freedom of Information Act until the administration of President Donald Trump began.
The department revealed its intention to release the records in response to the committee’s request, which the lawsuit suggests is merely an attempt to evade federal laws that prohibit such disclosures.
In the lawsuit, Biden is requesting that the court deem the committee’s request as pretextual and invalid, and to issue a permanent injunction against the release of the records to the committee.
Representatives from the Department of Justice did not respond immediately to inquiries for comments.
The recordings, which were made at Biden’s residence, were part of the process for his 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose, which chronicled Biden’s choice to run for the presidency while his eldest son, Beau, battled brain cancer.
Earlier this month, Biden sought to become involved in the Heritage Foundation’s lawsuit against the Justice Department regarding these materials. A judge permitted Biden to join the case last week but restricted him from pursuing claims concerning the committee’s request for the records, as per court documents.
