DOJ Can Give Biden Recordings to Conservative Group, Court Rules

A federal appeals court cleared the way for a conservative advocacy group to obtain copies of interviews Joe Biden privately recorded years ago for his memoir, denying the former president’s request for a temporary block.

A divided three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit refused to stop the Justice Department from turning over the tapes and transcripts to the Heritage Foundation while Biden presses the merits of his legal challenge to the disclosure.

His lawyers still could ask all of the court’s active judges to reconsider the panel’s decision.

Biden has been in court in recent weeks trying to stop the Justice Department from giving the recordings and transcripts to the Heritage Foundation and House Republicans. A separate lawsuit that Biden filed opposing the disclosure to lawmakers has been on hold until the organization’s case is resolved.

The materials are expected to become public if Biden loses either case.

The tapes were provided to a former Justice Department special counsel who investigated Biden’s handling of classified material and concluded charges weren’t warranted. Biden recorded the interviews with his memoir-writing partner in 2016 and 2017, and his political adversaries have sought access to them following a 2024 report about the investigation that cited them as proof of his “diminished” mental state.

The Justice Department had opposed the Heritage Foundation’s efforts to obtain the recordings and transcripts under a government transparency law while Biden was still in the White House. Under Trump, however, officials changed course and announced they would release them.

A federal judge in Washington denied Biden’s bid to block the transfer to the Heritage Foundation last month. She found that he was unlikely to succeed in arguing that Justice Department officials abused their discretion in deciding that the public’s interest outweighed his privacy rights. The judge noted at the time that some sections would be redacted to shield information about Biden’s family and health issues.

Biden’s lawyers had also argued that the Republican-led House Judiciary Committe’s request for the materials was a “pretext” to circumvent the litigation in the Heritage Foundation’s case. Chair Jim Jordan disputed that allegation and said that lawmakers have an interest in the information as part of their oversight investigation into how Biden’s Justice Department used special counsels.

The case is Heritage Foundation v. DOJ, 26-5235, US Court of Appeals, DC Circuit.

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