Judge Rules Biden Must Release Ghostwriter Recordings to Conservative Group

A federal judge has ruled that redacted recordings of President Biden’s conversations with his ghostwriter must be released to the conservative Heritage Foundation, dealing a blow to Mr. Biden’s efforts to keep the materials private.U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, who was nominated by President Trump in 2017, found on Friday that the public interest in the material outweighed Mr. Biden’s privacy concerns. The ruling followed a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Heritage Foundation seeking records from an investigation by a former special counsel, Robert Hur, into Mr. Biden’s handling of classified materials after his time as vice president.The recordings stem from interviews Mr. Biden conducted with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer for his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.” Mr. Hur obtained them as part of his probe into whether Mr. Biden improperly retained classified documents while serving as a senator and vice president. “As now redacted, the Zwonitzer materials contain no information about Biden’s family or other private persons,” the judge wrote. Yet immediately following her ruling, Judge Friedrich issued a temporary three-week stay “to permit the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit an orderly period to consider whether to grant an injunction pending appeal.”Although Mr. Hur found evidence that Mr. Biden “willfully retained” classified materials, he declined to recommend charges against the then-president. In his final report, he wrote that “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”Mr. Biden had intervened in the Heritage Foundation’s lawsuit, arguing that releasing the recordings would violate his privacy — particularly because some conversations touched on deeply personal matters, including the death of his son, Beau Biden. However, Judge Friedrich determined that the Department of Justice’s redactions adequately addressed those concerns.In her ruling, the judge wrote that the materials “contain no mention of highly sensitive topics like illness or death, nor do they mention any non-public persons, including members of Biden’s family.” She also noted that “the privacy interests in this case — though substantial — are mitigated by the Department’s extensive redactions, as reviewed by the Court in camera.”The recordings became a flashpoint in Washington after Mr. Hur declined to charge Mr. Biden. Congressional Republicans, unsatisfied with that outcome, demanded access to the full recordings. Mr. Biden’s Democratic administration refused, ultimately leading Republicans to hold his then-attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt. The Trump administration later authorized the release of the materials.Mr. Biden filed a separate lawsuit last month seeking to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts tied to the same investigation.

Judge Rules Biden Must Release Ghostwriter Recordings to Conservative Group

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