The former US president filed a lawsuit in a Washington federal court against the Department of Justice in an attempt to block the publication of audio recordings and transcripts of his private conversations with a biographer, recorded in 2016-2017, writes the BBC.
Photo: Sean Rayford/Getty Images
The transfer of materials by the Department of Justice to the House Judiciary Committee and the conservative Heritage Foundation is scheduled for June 15.
These recordings featured in Special Counsel Robert Hur's 2023 investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents: the former president was suspected of mishandling classified information. Ultimately, Hur declined to press criminal charges.
In the lawsuit, Biden accuses the Department of Justice of "unwarranted intrusion into the former president's private life."
"Every American, including a current or former Vice President, has a right to the privacy of private conversations he conducts in his own home," Biden's lawyers wrote, referring to Biden's conversations in 2016-2017 with writer Mark Zwonitzer, who worked with him on two memoirs.
As claimed in the lawsuit, under the Biden administration, the Justice Department itself sought to keep the materials secret, calling them protected from publication under the Freedom of Information Act. However, after Donald Trump's return to the White House, the department changed its position and announced that it would transfer the materials to the congressional committee.
Biden's lawyers argue that the committee's request is merely formal and is being used solely to circumvent federal restrictions on the publication of such materials.
The former president demands that the congressional request be declared invalid and that the transfer of the recordings to the committee be permanently prohibited.
The US Department of Justice has not yet commented on the lawsuit.
"No public interest"
The recordings were made at Joe Biden's home over a decade ago during the work on his memoir "Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose," published in 2017.
The book recounts Biden's decision to participate in the presidential race amid the serious illness of his eldest son, Beau Biden, who was battling brain cancer.
The recordings later came into the possession of Special Counsel Robert Hur as part of an investigation into the negligent handling of documents.
Hur examined these materials and personally conducted a five-hour interview with Biden.
In the final report to Congress, published in 2024, the special counsel concluded that there was no criminal offense.
However, he described the then 81-year-old president as a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory."
Following the lawsuit, Biden's representative, TJ Ducklo, stated that during his cooperation with Hur's investigation, the former president would provide the recordings only on the condition that they would not enter the public domain.
"The Justice Department itself previously said that these recordings have no public interest," Ducklo noted. "What's happening now is not about transparency. It's about politics."
"When the Department of Justice obtains such personal information as part of a criminal investigation, the department has a special responsibility to protect it from disclosure," added the US ex-president's lawyers.
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Хто гэтую лухту піша? Злачынства ёсць, але з-за ўзросту і праблем з памяццю прыцягнуць да адказнасці наўрад ці атрымаецца.