Former President Joe Biden sued the Justice Department on Tuesday to stop the planned release of audio recordings and transcripts from private conversations he had with his ghostwriter while preparing his 2017 memoir.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks to block the department from releasing the materials to the House Judiciary Committee and plaintiffs in a Freedom of Information Act case on June 15, 2026, unless a court intervenes.
The recordings came from conversations between Biden and writer Mark Zwonitzer at Biden’s home in 2016 and 2017, as the two worked on “Promise Me, Dad,” Biden’s memoir about the year surrounding his son Beau Biden’s illness and death, according to the complaint.
Federal investigators obtained the materials in 2023 during Special Counsel Robert K. Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified records after his vice presidency. Hur later concluded that criminal charges were not warranted, according to the filing.
For nearly two years, the Justice Department argued the materials should remain private. In earlier court filings cited in the complaint, department lawyers described the privacy interests at stake as “undoubtedly enormous” and compared release of the records to publishing an uncharged person’s diary entries or private text messages.
The department later changed its position, according to Biden’s complaint.
The filing says the department informed Biden’s legal team by phone in February 2026 that it intended to release 117 pages of transcripts and the accompanying audio recordings. Biden’s lawyers argue the department did not provide a formal explanation for the reversal.
The complaint says the department later pointed to a written request from House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan as a separate basis for release. That request is dated March 23, 2026 — four days after the department had already told Biden’s lawyers it existed, according to the filing.
Jordan’s stated reason for seeking the records was “to advance oversight of the politicization of the Biden-Garland Department of Justice,” according to the complaint.
Biden’s legal team challenges that justification. The complaint argues the request is pretextual, lacks a legitimate legislative purpose and exceeds the committee’s constitutional authority. The filing also argues the recordings predate the special counsel investigation and cannot shed light on how that investigation was conducted.
The complaint says Jordan misstated the status of the materials in a May 12 Fox News interview. According to the filing, Jordan said the committee already had the written transcripts and was seeking only the audio, though the complaint says neither had been released to the committee.
The lawsuit brings three legal claims. Two fall under the Administrative Procedure Act, alleging the department’s decision is arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion. The third invokes the Privacy Act, which generally bars federal agencies from disclosing certain personal records without the subject’s written consent unless an exception applies.
Biden’s lawyers argue no Privacy Act exception applies because, in their view, the congressional request is not legally valid.
Biden is asking the court to declare Jordan’s request invalid and unenforceable, set aside the Justice Department’s decision to release the materials to the committee, and issue preliminary and permanent injunctions blocking disclosure to the committee.
The complaint says Biden also intends to seek preliminary injunctions in both this case and the related FOIA case before the June 15 disclosure date.
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