Biden memoir recordings released by DOJ after court battle

Zoe Tillman, Bloomberg News on Jul 27, 2026

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Justice Department has released audio recordings of interviews that former President Joe Biden taped with his memoir-writing partners years ago after he lost a court fight to prevent the disclosure.

An advocacy group affiliated with the Heritage Foundation on Monday made the tapes available online, ending a yearslong legal fight over whether the tapes and accompanying transcripts should be shared with the public.

The records were turned over as part of a Justice Department special counsel investigation into Biden’s handling of classified material. No charges were filed. The interviews with Biden were recorded in 2016 and 2017. Adversaries pressed for access to them following a 2024 report about the investigation that cited them as proof of his “diminished” mental state.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative advocacy group, sued to get the materials under the federal Freedom of Information Act. The Justice Department under Biden fought disclosure, but officials changed course under President Donald Trump and indicated they would make them available.

Biden intervened in the Heritage Foundation’s case to try to block the release. He filed a separate lawsuit challenging the Justice Department’s plan to make the recordings and transcripts available to House Republicans as well. A judge paused Biden’s lawsuit against lawmakers until the foundation’s case was resolved.

A federal district judge in Washington in June denied Biden’s request to stop the records from going to the Heritage Foundation and a federal appeals court refused to intervene on his behalf this month. In a 2-1 decision, the appeals judges agreed with the lower court judge that Biden was unlikely to prove that his privacy rights outweighed the public’s interest in the materials.

On Friday, the Heritage Foundation notified the appeals court that Biden had told the Justice Department and the House Judiciary Committee that he wouldn’t pursue any additional appeals to try to stop the materials from being released.

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(With assistance from Gregory Korte.)

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