More than 100 pages of transcripts and two hours of audio from Joe Biden’s 2016 and 2017 conversations with memoir writer Mark Zwonitzer show repeated classified-information redactions, references to documents in Biden’s possession and difficulty recalling some names and dates.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Newly released recordings and transcripts from former President Joe Biden’s interviews with his ghostwriter contain extensive classified-information redactions and show Biden acknowledging that some of the material he was discussing was likely classified.
The conversations took place in 2016 and 2017 as Biden worked with author Mark Zwonitzer on his memoir, “Promise Me, Dad,” after completing his tenure as vice president. The Oversight Project published more than 100 pages of interview transcripts and approximately two hours of audio recordings Monday.
The release followed a two-year legal effort to obtain the materials from former Special Counsel Robert Hur. Biden dropped his opposition to their release last week after a federal court determined that the public interest outweighed his privacy claims, according to the Oversight Project’s announcement.
The 117-page transcript contains numerous blacked-out passages attributed to classified information. Several portions involve Biden’s accounts of meetings with members of former President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, including people who later served in Biden’s administration.
The submitted material identifies former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin among the officials connected to those meetings. The Department of Defense redacted information about the discussions.
Other portions were withheld under the National Security Act or redacted by the CIA. Several pages involving Zwonitzer and an “unidentified male speaker” were also blacked out.
During the interviews, Biden described a handwritten memorandum he prepared for Obama in 2009 opposing the deployment of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Biden said the memorandum was approximately 40 pages long and argued that sending more forces “wouldn’t matter.”
“The day we left would be like the day before we arrived,” Biden told Zwonitzer.
The recordings include audible breaks where classified content was removed. Biden also referred to documents he still possessed that he said the White House did not know about.
The Oversight Project argued that the redactions show Biden disclosed more classified information to Zwonitzer than Hur’s investigation previously conveyed publicly.
“The listener shouldn’t overlook the audio redactions because those redactions are intended to cover the disclosure of classified information,” the organization wrote. “The silence of the redactions loudly demonstrates that Biden knowingly and willfully disclosed classified information to his ghostwriter.”
That characterization represents the Oversight Project’s conclusion based on the released material. The transcripts themselves contain redactions that prevent the public from reviewing the underlying classified passages.
The recordings also contain moments in which Biden struggled to remember names and appeared uncertain about dates or the sequence of events.
During an April 2017 conversation, Biden could not immediately recall the name of former White House economic adviser Alan Krueger.
“I’ll think of his name,” Biden said. “I should write the names down because I keep forgetting them.”
The Oversight Project said the pauses, verbal hesitations and confusion heard in the recordings indicated that Biden’s cognitive difficulties were evident years before his presidency.
“The tapes have always belonged to the American People, the Oversight Project just delivered them to their rightful owner,” Oversight Project President Mike Howell said.
“We now know what has been long assumed: the autopen scandal extends far back beyond just when Joe Biden ‘ran’ for president from his basement,” Howell continued.
“These tapes have so many pauses and ‘ums’ that it sounds like Biden is buffering like a dial-up Internet connection. The knowledge of his deterioration was well-established,” he said. “We can never have a presidential administration run by machinized fiat again. Only one person can be president at a time, and ideally that person should actually win a credible election.”
Hur investigated Biden’s possession and disclosure of classified documents, including material discussed with Zwonitzer. His report concluded that evidence showed Biden had willfully retained and disclosed classified information after leaving the vice presidency, but Hur declined to recommend criminal charges.
Hur said prosecutors would likely have difficulty persuading a jury to convict Biden, citing evidentiary issues and the likelihood that he would present himself as an elderly man with memory problems.
Recordings from Biden’s separate 2023 interview with Hur were also later released. Those audio files showed Biden struggling with dates and other details, including the year he completed his service as vice president.
The Hur recordings also contained lengthy pauses, occasional slurred speech and muttered responses that were less apparent in the written transcript.
Biden administration officials and other Democrats criticized Hur’s report at the time as politically motivated, particularly its descriptions of Biden’s memory. Hur nevertheless did not recommend that the former president face prosecution.
The newly released Zwonitzer materials provide a separate record of Biden’s private conversations several years earlier. They contain both extensive classified redactions and instances in which Biden openly questioned whether the documents or information he was reviewing could be discussed.
The release gives the public its first opportunity to hear portions of the original conversations underlying Hur’s inquiry into Biden’s work with his ghostwriter, while the remaining redactions continue to conceal the specific classified information involved.
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