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A federal appeals court has rejected former US President Joe Biden’s bid to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of interviews he gave to a memoir ghostwriter before he was elected president.
In a 2-1 ruling issued late Monday, the panel found there is a “substantial” public interest in disclosing the material Biden wants to keep under wraps, adding that redactions to the recordings would help protect his privacy.
“We conclude that any remaining incursion on personal privacy from disclosure of the now-redacted materials likely does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure,” the ruling said.
The recordings stem from interviews conducted by Mark Zwonitzer at Biden’s home in 2016 and 2017 while they were working on his books. Biden’s lawyers argue the conversations were candid, personal and intended to remain private.
The recordings were obtained by special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents from his time as a senator from Delaware and as Obama’s vice president.
Republicans in Congress demanded the material after Hur declined to file charges against the then-president.
Judge Florence Pan, who was nominated by Biden, wrote a dissenting opinion arguing that the former president has a “substantial privacy interest” in keeping the material hidden.
“The conversations at issue took place in Biden’s home, and the recordings of them were obtained by the government in the course of a criminal investigation that did not lead to an indictment,” she wrote.
Biden sued to stop the Trump administration’s Justice Department from releasing the recordings to Congress and the conservative Heritage Foundation, but appealed after US District Judge Dabney Friedrich ruled in June that the public interest in the material outweighed his privacy rights.
In her dissent, Pan said the majority’s decision effectively clears the way for the recordings’ immediate release, making the case “moot.”