A divided federal appeals court ruled against former President Joe Biden’s attempt to keep audio recordings and transcripts of his ghostwriter interviews sealed, a legal defeat that could expose the full extent of the memory lapses Special Counsel Robert Hur documented.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit handed down a 2-1 decision Monday rejecting Biden’s privacy claims and finding that the public’s interest in the material outweighs whatever personal embarrassment the recordings might cause. Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan, an Obama appointee, joined with Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee, in the majority. The lone dissenter: Judge Florence Pan, the only Biden appointee on the panel.
The recordings at issue capture Biden’s private conversations with author Mark Zwonitzer, who ghostwrote the former president’s 2017 memoir “Promise Me, Dad.” Those sessions, conducted at Biden’s home after he left the vice presidency, were later obtained by Hur’s team during its investigation into Biden’s handling of classified information. The Heritage Foundation sued the Justice Department in March 2024 under the Freedom of Information Act to force their release.