Summary:
Audio recordings of interviews Joe Biden gave to his ghostwriter in 2016 and 2017 have been publicly released after a multi-year legal battle. The recordings, made while Biden was working on the memoir Promise Me, Dad, were obtained by Special Counsel Robert Hur during his investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents. The newly available material includes passages in which Biden refers to classified information and notebooks kept at his home, as well as multiple instances of memory lapses. The release is substantially more complete than the limited, heavily redacted transcript set issued by the Biden-era Justice Department in 2024.
Detailed Report
1. Biden Ghostwriter Tapes Released
The Oversight Project has released approximately 70 hours of audio recordings and associated transcripts of interviews conducted between October 2016 and April 2017, by then-Vice President Joe Biden with his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer. The interviews were recorded at Biden’s home while Zwonitzer worked on the memoir Promise Me, Dad. The materials had been obtained by Special Counsel Robert Hur during his investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents.
2. Multi-Year Legal Battle Over the Recordings
The recordings and transcripts became the subject of prolonged litigation. In February 2024 House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan formally requested the material from Zwonitzer. The Oversight Project and related parties pursued the records through FOIA. In October 2024 the Biden-era Justice Department released 117 pages of heavily redacted transcripts but withheld the bulk of the audio and fuller transcripts. After the change in administration the Justice Department prepared to release the broader set. Biden sued to block disclosure, arguing the conversations were private. A D.C. Circuit panel rejected the challenge in a 2–1 decision, finding that the public interest outweighed remaining privacy concerns. The Oversight Project then released the materials.
Jeff Clark, Vice President of Litigation at the Oversight Project, stated: “The release of the tapes today, after the Oversight Project won pitched battles with the Biden DOJ and then against Joe Biden’s white-shoe lawyers in D.C., should cause a thorough reexamination of the non-prosecution recommendation of Special Counsel Robert Hur in February 2024.”
3. Biden on Tape: Classified Material and Hidden Notebooks
Across multiple sessions Biden flags material as classified or too sensitive and discusses notebooks he kept outside official channels.
On 3 November 2016, while going through his notes with Zwonitzer, he states: “The next thing I have here is classified.”
On 16 February 2017 he says: “So this was, I early on, um, in ’09 I just found all the classified stuff downstairs.” In the same session he reads from his diary, narrating a classified National Security Council meeting.
On 24 April 2017 he warns Zwonitzer: “Some of this may be classified so be careful with it.” Later the same day, referring to handwritten records from his time in office: “I had all those at the house in a safe. I don’t know what… they made me do with them.”
On 26 April 2017 an exchange occurs over whether certain material should have been turned over as presidential papers:
Zwonitzer: “This is probably something that goes to the presidential papers.”
Biden: “I don’t think so. It was in between. I didn’t want to turn them in.”
These passages formed a central part of Special Counsel Hur’s evidence that Biden possessed and disclosed material from notebooks containing classified entries.
4. Memory Lapses and Self-Corrections on the Recordings
The 2016–2017 recordings contain repeated instances in which Biden struggles to retrieve details, loses his train of thought, or acknowledges gaps in his recollection while speaking to Zwonitzer.
In one exchange he begins a thought and stalls: “I can’t remember any — you don’t want to go the Mario Cuomo route…”
When discussing the militant group Al-Nusra he first places it in the wrong country (“In Iran”) before correcting himself to Syria.
On 24 April 2017 he says: “I was going to ask you something else. Uhhh. Ummm. Oh gosh. I can’t think what it is.”
In another session, while trying to recall a past meeting, Biden loses track of what he was discussing, states “it’s confusing me,” and requires his assistant to bring him back on track.
He also remarks at one point, “I should write the names down because I keep forgetting them,” then pauses for several seconds before the interviewer supplies a name.
These contemporaneous examples from 2016 and 2017 align with Special Counsel Hur’s later description of Biden’s memory as “significantly limited” during the ghostwriter interviews.
5. What the Biden Justice Department Released vs What Is Public Now
In October 2024 the Biden-era Justice Department released 117 pages of transcripts described in court filings as “verbatim transcripts of a small subset of the Biden-Zwonitzer audio recordings.” The release contained no audio, was heavily redacted under FOIA exemptions, and covered only a limited number of the interview sessions.
The 2026 release makes available approximately 70 hours of audio and a substantially more complete set of transcripts. It includes the passages in which Biden explicitly refers to classified material and discusses notebooks kept at his home, as well as the audio that allows listeners to hear the frequency of pauses and self-corrections. The practical difference is significant: the earlier official release provided a redacted written sample of a fraction of the material; the current release provides the underlying recordings and a far larger volume of the conversations reviewed by the special counsel.
6. Special Counsel Hur’s Findings and Decision Not to Charge
Special Counsel Robert Hur’s February 2024 report stated that the investigation had uncovered evidence that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” including notebooks containing classified entries. The report specifically cited the recorded conversations with Zwonitzer in which Biden read aloud from those notebooks.
Hur concluded that no criminal charges were warranted because the evidence did not establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He wrote that Biden “would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Biden responded on 8 February 2024 that he was pleased no charges were recommended, that he had cooperated fully, and that he had never shared classified material with his ghostwriter.
7. Extra Background: Ghostwriter Deleted Audio Files After Investigation Began
Hur’s report documented that after learning of the special counsel’s appointment, Zwonitzer deleted digital audio recordings of the interviews. The FBI recovered the deleted files. Zwonitzer retained and later produced near-verbatim transcripts. Hur considered but did not pursue obstruction charges against the ghostwriter.
Conclusion
The 2016–2017 recordings and transcripts, long withheld in full, are now public. They contain Biden’s own references to classified material and contemporaneous examples of memory difficulty, and they stand in clear contrast to the limited release made by the Justice Department in 2024.