Joe Biden files lawsuit against DOJ over planned release of memoir interview recordings

Former US President Joe Biden has filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department in an effort to stop the release of audio recordings and transcripts connected to interviews he gave to a biographer years before a classified documents investigation began.

According to a CBS News report, the lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in the US District Court in Columbia, and it seeks to prevent the Justice Department from handing over nearly 70 hours of recordings and transcripts from interviews conducted with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer in 2016 and 2017.

The material was used for Biden’s 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad.

Biden and his legal team have argued for years that the recordings are protected from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

According to the report, the Justice Department recently informed a federal judge that it planned to release the files to both the House Judiciary Committee and the Heritage Foundation by June 15 unless blocked by the courts.

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Biden had previously asserted executive privilege over the recordings in 2024 after House Republicans sought access to them.

Investigation into classified documents

The dispute is linked to the broader investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents after certain classified documents were discovered in late 2022 and early 2023 at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at his former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, the report said.

In January 2023, then Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Robert Hur to investigate whether Biden had improperly retained sensitive government material after serving as vice president.

According to the report, after a year-long investigation, Hur released a lengthy report in February 2024 concluding that Biden had “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” after leaving office as vice president. However, Hur said there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against him.

Hur’s investigation involved interviews with 147 people, including Biden himself.

Biden accuses DOJ of reversing position

Following the release of Hur’s findings, the Justice Department under the Biden administration rejected Republican efforts to obtain audio from Biden’s interview. However, portions of the recordings were later published by Axios in May 2025.

In Tuesday’s filing, Biden’s lawyers argued that the Justice Department under President Donald Trump had changed its earlier stance without proper explanation.

The lawsuit states that in February 2026, the department informed Biden that it intended to release the audio recordings and transcripts connected to the Freedom of Information Act cases.

The Biden investigation unfolded alongside a separate classified documents case involving President Trump after FBI agents searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022 and recovered documents marked classified.

Trump later faced multiple federal charges over the handling of classified records, though the case was dismissed in July 2024 after a judge ruled that special counsel Jack Smith had been improperly appointed.

Late Tuesday night, Trump reacted to Biden’s lawsuit on Truth Social, calling the former president a “Crooked Politician.”