Biden Sues Justice Department to Block Release of Biographer Interview Files Amid Executive Privilege Battle
Former President Joe Biden has taken legal action against the Justice Department in an effort to prevent the release of files connected to interviews he conducted with a biographer — materials that later became a focal point of a special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks to block the department from handing over approximately 70 hours of audio recordings and transcripts to the House Judiciary Committee. The materials stem from interviews with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, conducted in 2016 and 2017, which were used for Biden’s 2017 memoir Promise Me, Dad.
Biden and his legal team have long argued that the files are exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. The suit arrives after three separate FOIA lawsuits were filed seeking to unseal the records. In one case, involving the conservative Heritage Foundation, Justice Department attorneys told a federal judge earlier this month that they planned to release the files — with redactions — to both the committee and the foundation by June 15, barring a court ruling.
The dispute escalated in 2024, when Biden asserted executive privilege over the recordings after House Republicans moved to access them. Now, under the Trump administration, Biden’s attorneys argue the Justice Department has reversed its earlier position on releasing the files.
“In February 2026, without any formal explanation for its about-face, the Department notified President Biden of its intention to release the audio recordings and transcripts to the plaintiffs in the FOIA Action,” the motion states.
The legal battle is the latest chapter in a protracted controversy that began in late 2022 and early 2023, when classified documents were discovered at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home and at his former private office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. In January 2023, then-Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Robert Hur to investigate whether Biden had mishandled sensitive materials.
After a year-long probe, Hur released a 345-page report in February 2024. While concluding that Biden had “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” the report determined there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges. Hur’s team interviewed 147 people, including Biden himself.
During Biden’s remaining tenure, the Justice Department refused Republican lawmakers’ requests to release audio from Biden’s interview with Hur, though snippets were obtained and published by Axios in May 2025.
The Biden investigation ran parallel to a separate classified documents probe involving President Donald Trump. That case began when the Justice Department searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022, seizing White House documents with classified markings. Trump was later federally charged with dozens of counts related to mishandling classified documents, but those charges were dismissed in July 2024 after a judge ruled that special counsel Jack Smith had been unlawfully appointed.
In February, the same judge blocked the release of portions of Smith’s report addressing Trump’s handling of sensitive documents. Late Tuesday night, Trump responded to Biden’s lawsuit on Truth Social, calling Biden a “Crooked Politician.”
CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department for comment on the complaint. The case underscores the ongoing legal and political tensions surrounding the handling of classified materials by former presidents, and the limits of executive privilege in the face of congressional oversight and FOIA requests.