Biden sues Justice Department to stop release of audio from interviews

The former president is urging a judge to block the release of recordings and transcripts of his private conversations with the ghostwriter of his 2017 memoir.

Former President Joe Biden sued the Justice Department on Tuesday, urging a federal judge to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of his private conversations with the ghostwriter of his 2017 memoir.

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The suit stems from a 2024 Freedom of Information Act request by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which later filed its own lawsuit to obtain Biden’s remarks to Mark Zwonitzer when they were writing “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.”

The Justice Department had withheld the sought-after materials, arguing they were exempt from disclosure. But during President Donald Trump’s second term, Biden’s attorney Amy Jeffress writes in Tuesday’s lawsuit in U.S. District Court for Washington D.C., “the Department has reversed that position.”