The Department of Justice is in possession of transcripts detailing conversations President Joe Biden had with his ghostwriter during which the president may have revealed classified information, DOJ attorneys revealed Monday in court filings.
The attorneys acknowledged the transcripts in a response to a lawsuit brought by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
The Heritage Foundation had requested several documents and recordings referenced in former special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified documents. One of the requests was for audio of Biden’s interviews with Mark Zwonitzer, who ghostwrote the president’s memoir Promise Me, Dad.
DOJ attorneys said Monday they discovered transcripts of some of the audio in the “past few days” as they were processing “portions of the Biden-Zwonitzer audio recordings that the parties agreed to.”
“The Department located six electronic files, consisting of a total of 117 pages, that appeared to be verbatim transcripts of a small subset of the Biden-Zwonitzer audio recordings created for the SCO by a court-reporting service,” the attorneys wrote.
A DOJ lawyer previously told the court no such transcripts existed.
“Unlike the case of the special counsel and his interviews with the president, we don’t have some transcript that’s been created by the special counsel that we can attest to its accuracy,” the attorney said during a hearing last month.
The Heritage Foundation is among several entities that have sued the DOJ over its refusal to provide certain information from Hur’s investigation.
The plaintiffs have primarily sought audio recordings of an interview Hur conducted with Biden last year. The DOJ released a transcript of the interview but has claimed the tapes are protected by executive privilege.
During the interview, Hur said in his final report, Biden showed signs of cognitive decline, which is one reason the special counsel opted not to prosecute the president for mishandling classified material.
But the interviews between Biden and Zwonitzer, which took place in 2016 and 2017, also played a crucial role in Hur’s report.
Hur said during the book writing process, Biden sometimes read notes he had taken during classified meetings he was part of when he was vice president to Zwonitzer “nearly word-for-word.”
The DOJ has said, in total, there are about 70 hours worth of audio recordings between Biden and Zwonitzer.
The Heritage Foundation has been involved in a legal dispute with the department for months over records from the DOJ related to Hur. A hearing that was scheduled for Tuesday between the two parties was canceled and is expected to be rescheduled for sometime in the coming days.
Others seeking records from Hur’s investigation include the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, and a media coalition led by CNN.
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Hur’s investigative materials became of top interest to the groups after the special counsel declined to prosecute Biden despite finding that he was negligent with classified documents from when he was vice president and senator and that he disclosed classified information to Zwonitzer.
Hur’s repeated references to Biden’s mental acuity in the report he released in February intensified interest, as the president’s fitness for office had become a growing source of scrutiny and ultimately led to him ending his bid for reelection this week.