Former President Joe Biden has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of interviews with his biographer that were later used in an investigation into the handling of classified documents, CBS News reported.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Washington, D.C., seeks to block the release of about 70 hours of audio recordings and transcripts to the House Judiciary Committee. The materials include interviews with shadow writer Mark Zvonitzer used for his 2017 memoir, "Promise Me, Dad," conducted in 2016-2017.
Biden and his lawyers argue that the documents are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. The lawsuit is the latest development after three separate FOIA requests seeking to declassify them.
In a separate case involving the Heritage Foundation, the Justice Department told a court that it planned to provide the redacted materials to Congress and the foundation on June 15, unless otherwise ordered.
Biden said in 2024 that the records were subject to executive privilege after House Republicans requested access to them. The Justice Department declined to comment.
In late 2022 and early 2023, classified documents were found at his home in Wilmington and in an office at the "Penn Biden Center". In January 2023, special counsel Robert Hurr was appointed and released a 345-page report in February 2024. It stated that "Biden knowingly retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency, when he was a private citizen", but there was insufficient evidence to charge him. The investigation includes 147 people questioned, including Biden himself.
The department previously refused to release the audio recording of Hurr's interview with Biden, even though portions were published by Axios in May 2025. Biden's lawyers argue that there has been a shift in position under the Trump administration.
They point out that "in February 2026, without a formal explanation for its change, the Department notified President Biden of its intention to provide the audio recordings and transcripts to plaintiffs in the Freedom of Information Act case."
The case overlaps with a separate investigation into Donald Trump for classified documents that began after a raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022. The charges against him were dismissed in July 2024 after a court ruled that the special counsel was appointed illegally, and the release of the parts of his report.