Joe Biden will fight the Trump DOJ to prevent the release 70 hours of audiotapes of the former president’s conversations with his ghostwriter.
Last week it was reported that the DOJ was preparing to release damning audio of Biden’s interview with former Special Counsel Robert Hur. The Department is also going to release 2017 audio recordings of conversations with his ghostwriter in which he disclosed classified information.
Joe Biden is expected to intervene, according to Politico. The Judge says Biden has until Tuesday to respond.
“Former President Joe Biden intends to intervene in litigation to block the Trump administration’s effort to release 70 hours of partially redacted audio recordings of interviews he conducted in 2017 with a ghostwriter who worked with Biden on his memoirs, the Justice Department indicated in new court papers,” Politico reported.
“DOJ lawyers told a federal judge in Washington on Friday that they expected Biden would seek to “prevent any such disclosures” of the audio tapes to Congress and to the conservative Heritage Foundation, which sued last year to access the materials,” the outlet reported.
“President Biden cooperated fully with Special Counsel Hur, and agreed to provide audiotapes of conversations with his biographer for a book about his deceased son on the condition that they would not be made public,” Biden spokesperson TJ Ducklo said in a statement to Politico. “The DOJ themselves have said these tapes serve no public interest.”
“What’s happening now isn’t about transparency. It’s about politics,” Ducklo continued. “If this Administration were genuinely committed to transparency, they would release Volume 2 of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on Donald Trump’s own alleged mishandling of classified documents. That report contains information Americans actually deserve to see.”
Joe Biden previously asserted executive privilege over the audio recordings related to then-Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into his stolen classified documents scandal.
Republicans have argued that Joe Biden cannot assert executive privilege over the audio since the transcript has already been released.
Then-US Attorney General Merrick Garland classified the audio tapes of Biden’s interview with Hur as “Top Secret” and locked it way in a SCIF.
The Oversight Project vowed to obtain and release Biden’s audio recordings of his conversation with his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer.
Here is the backstory on Mark Zwonitzer:
Robert Hur in February 2024 released a 345-page report on his investigation of the stolen classified documents.
Robert Hur found that Joe Biden “willfully retained” classified information, however, he decided not to charge him. Hur said there is evidence Biden retained classified notebooks, “knowing he was not allowed to do so.”
Classified documents stored in Biden’s Delaware garage/ source Robert Hur report
Biden was not charged even though he willfully retained SCIF-designated classified documents and shared material with his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer.
According to Robert Hur, In 2017, Joe Biden read aloud classified passages about meetings in the Situation Room to his ghostwriter “verbatim on at least three occasions” – and Biden still wasn’t charged.
Mark Zwonitzer deleted digital audio files of recordings of his conversations with Biden after learning about Special Counsel Robert Hur’s appointment.
According to Hur’s report, Zwonitzer deleted the files before he received a subpoena.
Technicians were able to recover the deleted recordings but Zwonitzer was not charged for deleting the files.
According to the report, portions of three of Zwonitzer’s recovered audio files appeared to be missing and a fourth file appeared to have portions overwritten with a separate recording.
“Zwonitzer stated that at some point he deleted the audio files subfolder from his laptop and external hard drive. No relevant deleted files were recovered from the laptop. Deleted audio files were recovered from a subfolder on the external hard drive labeled “Audio.” Based on the available evidence from the forensic review, we assess that all deleted audio files were recovered from that subfolder. For three of the recovered files, portions of the audio appeared to be missing, and a fourth file appeared to have portions overwritten with a separate recording. These results are possible when forensic tools are used to recover deleted files. For each of these four incomplete or overwritten files, Zwonitzer produced his corresponding transcripts to investigators. These notes summarized the content of the conversations, two of which were with Mr. Biden and two of which were with Beau Biden’s doctor,” the report read.
The feds declined to charge Zwonitzer.
The House Judiciary Committee previously voted to hold Mark Zwonitzer in contempt of Congress.
Rep. Elise Stefanik also disclosed that there is an audio recording of Biden telling Mark Zwonitzer that he “just found all the classified stuff downstairs.”
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