A United States judge has denied a petition from former Democratic President Joe Biden arguing his right to privacy would be violated should recordings he made for a memoir be made public.
On Friday, US District Judge Dabney Friedrich, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled that the recordings could be released to the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank.
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The Trump administration had already authorised the release of the recordings and transcripts, which Biden made while out of public office with his ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer.
Together, they released the 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.
In her 26-page ruling, Friedrich acknowledged that Biden was likely to suffer some reputational damage as a result of the recordings being released.
Biden has long been scrutinised about whether his advanced age impeded his ability to serve as president during his term from 2021 to 2025. Previously, he served as vice president from 2009 to 2017.
“The Court agrees that — on these facts involving the frank words of a public figure in his home — disclosure of the Zwonitzer materials risks irreparable harm to Biden’s privacy interests and his reputation,” Friedrich wrote.
But she concluded that such harms may not be irreparable, and they do not supersede the public interest in releasing the files.
“Biden has not identified any public harm that would arise absent an injunction in this case,” Friedrich said. “The harm to Biden’s diminished privacy interest is outweighed by the public’s interest in the Zwonitzer materials.”
Biden filed a lawsuit arguing that the Department of Justice had a duty to protect the private information it collects during criminal investigations.
He petitioned the court for an injunction to prevent the Heritage Foundation, which has supported Trump, from receiving the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
“Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” Biden’s lawyers have said in his court filings.
The recordings and transcripts came to be in the Justice Department’s possession in 2023, during Biden’s own term.
The Justice Department at the time had appointed a special counsel, lawyer Robert Hur, to independently investigate Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents while out of office.
A similar investigation, helmed by a second special counsel, Jack Smith, resulted in a short-lived criminal indictment against Trump. Hur, however, concluded that no criminal charges were “warranted” against Biden.
Part of his rationale was “a shortage of evidence”. But another part of his reasoning was that, if any charges were brought to trial, jurors were likely to perceive Biden “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.
As part of his investigation, Hur had obtained Biden’s recordings and transcripts with Zwonitzer in order to evaluate whether the Democrat had misused information from his time as president for his memoir.
But he also cited them as evidence to conclude that Biden “appeared to have significant limitations” in his memory.
The scrutiny over Biden’s age increased substantially during his 2024 bid for re-election. At a June 2024 presidential debate against Trump, Biden appeared to drift off topic and make nonsensical statements.
At one point, he issued the non sequitur, “We finally beat Medicare,” referencing a government health insurance programme for the elderly and those with disabilities.
Biden subsequently dropped out of the race, and his replacement, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, lost to Trump after a curtailed campaign. The Democrat, however, has consistently denied that he was unable to perform his duties as president.
Trump, meanwhile, has cited Biden’s age and mental acuity as a reason to undo the Democrat’s actions while in office.
He has also called on the Justice Department to investigate whether any officials attempted to conceal any health conditions Biden may have had while president.
The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee has also sought to obtain the Zwonitzer files for a similar investigation.
Biden was 82 years old by the time he left office in January 2025, making him the oldest sitting president in US history. Trump will be slightly older by the end of his tenure, should he complete his second term.
The Democrat is expected to appeal Friday’s decision to release the recordings.
