Former Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday, seeking to prevent the release of audio recordings and transcripts of private conversations with his biographer from 2016 and 2017.
Lawsuit Filed in Federal Court
The lawsuit, submitted in federal court in Washington D.C., challenges the department's planned June 15 release of the materials to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and the conservative Heritage Foundation. The foundation had requested the records after they were used in former Special Counsel Robert Hur's 2023 investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents. Hur ultimately declined to bring criminal charges.
Allegations of FOIA Violations
According to the lawsuit, the Department of Justice initially resisted the Heritage Foundation's 2024 request for the records, arguing they were exempt from the Freedom of Information Act until President Donald Trump took office. However, the department later announced it would release the records in response to the committee's request, which the lawsuit claims is a pretext to circumvent federal law prohibiting their release.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare the committee's request pretextual and invalid, and to permanently bar the release of the records to the committee.
Representatives for the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Background on the Recordings
The recordings were made in Biden's home as part of the writing process for his 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose, which details his decision to run for president while his eldest son, Beau, battled brain cancer. Earlier this month, Biden sought to intervene in the Heritage Foundation's lawsuit against the Justice Department over the materials. Last week, a judge allowed Biden to join the case but barred him from pursuing claims regarding the committee's request for the materials, according to court records.
