Newly released recordings from Joe Biden’s 2017 memoir interviews show the former vice president referring to classified material kept downstairs at his home while struggling at times to recall names, dates and events.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Recently released audio from former President Joe Biden’s conversations with the ghostwriter of his 2017 memoir includes multiple references to classified information in his possession and repeated instances in which he had difficulty recalling names, dates and the sequence of past events.
The recordings document interviews Biden gave author Mark Zwonitzer while the two worked on “Promise Me, Dad,” several years before Biden began his 2020 presidential campaign.
The Oversight Project’s Mike Howell brought the lawsuit seeking public access to the material after Biden’s representatives resisted its release. The former president’s attorneys later abandoned their attempt to block disclosure, allowing approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes of recordings and heavily redacted interview transcripts to become public.
The audio contains lengthy pauses, unfinished thoughts and moments in which Biden said he could not remember names or details connected to events he was recounting.
“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 said in a statement. “These tapes have so many pauses and ‘ums’ that it sounds like Biden is buffering like a dial-up Internet connection.”
At one point, Biden appeared to question information contained in material before him while attempting to identify a person connected to a memorial service.
“I think I went to that memorial service in Wilmington. It says [REDACTED] December the 4th, but I don’t — I know what this means. Memorial service — [REDACTED] gets names really f—ed up,” Biden said in the recording. “So it says memorial service for [REDACTED]. I don’t think her name was [REDACTED]. Or I forget [REDACTED].”
Elsewhere in the interviews, Biden acknowledged that he was having difficulty remembering another person’s identity.
“I’ll think of his name,” Biden said.
“I should write the names down because I keep forgetting them,” he added.
The recordings also feature Biden warning Zwonitzer that some of the information they were discussing might be classified.
“Some of this may be classified so be careful with it,” Biden said.
In another passage, Biden referred to finding classified material in a lower level of his home.
“So this was, I early on, um, in ’09 I just found all the classified stuff downstairs,” he said.
Biden made another direct reference while reviewing material during the interviews.
“The next thing I have here is, um, this is classified …” he said.
Those remarks are relevant to the classified-documents investigation later conducted by special counsel Robert Hur. Hur concluded his investigation in February 2024 and found that Biden had “willfully” retained classified documents, but declined to bring charges after determining there was “insufficient evidence” to establish criminal wrongdoing beyond a reasonable doubt.
Hur’s report also characterized Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
During interviews connected to the special counsel’s inquiry, Biden reportedly could not recall when he announced his presidential candidacy, when his vice presidency ended or when his son Beau Biden died.
The newly released ghostwriter recordings predate those interviews by several years and show Biden experiencing difficulties with names and chronology while discussing events for his memoir.
The Oversight Project also drew attention to the substantial redactions appearing throughout the released material. The organization argued that the withheld sections should be considered significant because several occur immediately after Biden references classified information.
“At several points in the tapes, Biden references the information he is reviewing is likely classified, which is followed by significant audio redactions for classified information,” the Oversight Project said. “This was not just once or twice, these classified redactions cover significant portions of the audio files released.”
“The listener shouldn’t overlook the audio redactions because those redactions are intended to cover the disclosure of classified information,” the group emphasized.
The recordings do not independently establish the classification status of every document or subject Biden discussed. They do, however, show that he repeatedly identified some of the material as classified or potentially classified while speaking with Zwonitzer.
They also indicate that Biden understood at the time that caution was necessary when discussing the information with someone who was helping prepare a commercially published memoir.
The released interviews add another layer to questions surrounding Biden’s handling of classified documents after leaving the vice presidency. Investigators later recovered classified materials from locations connected to Biden, including his Delaware residence and an office used after he left the Obama administration.
Hur’s decision not to prosecute centered on whether the available evidence would be sufficient to prove that Biden knowingly and unlawfully retained or disclosed classified information. Although the special counsel documented evidence of willful retention, he concluded that the evidence did not support criminal charges.
The recordings released through the Oversight Project’s litigation provide the public with Biden’s own contemporaneous remarks from 2017, including his statement that he had found “all the classified stuff downstairs” and his warning that some material being discussed could be classified.
The complete collection of released audio recordings is available here.
Original article
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