Former President Biden sues DOJ over release of interview audio

By Diana Novak Jones

May 26 (Reuters) – Former U.S. Democratic President Joe Biden filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of private conversations he had with his biographer in 2016 and 2017.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., comes before the department is scheduled to present materials to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and the conservative Heritage Foundation on June 15.

The foundation sought those documents after then-Special Counsel Robert Hur used them as part of his 2023 investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents. Hur refused to press charges.

The lawsuit alleges that the department opposed the Heritage Foundation’s request in 2024 to exempt the records from the Freedom of Information Act until President Donald Trump took office. He announced that he would release the records in response to the committee’s request; The lawsuit alleges that this merely amounts to federal law blocking his release.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare the committee’s request pretextual and invalid and to permanently prevent the disclosure of the records to the committee.

Justice Department representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The recordings, made at Biden’s home, were part of the writing process for Biden’s 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Adversity and Purpose,” which details his decision to pursue the presidency while his oldest son, Beau, battles brain cancer.

Earlier this month, Biden attempted to intervene in the Heritage Foundation’s lawsuit against the Justice Department over the materials. A judge last week allowed Biden to join the case but barred the committee from pursuing allegations related to the request for materials, court records show.

(Reporting by Diana Novak Jones; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)