President Donald Trump has branded his predecessor Joe Biden a “crooked politician” after the former president sued the Department of Justice to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts from private interviews he performed with his memoir’s ghostwriter.
The materials were originally obtained by the special counsel investigating Biden’s handling of classified documents.
Trump hit out at the news with a blunt caption on Truth Social while sharing a report about Biden’s legal action.
“A Crooked Politician!!!” Trump wrote Tuesday.
A federal lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday alleges that Trump’s Justice Department intends to release the materials to Congress and right-wing Heritage Foundation, which has filed its own lawsuit to obtain Biden’s remarks to Mark Zwonitzer while they were writing Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.
The Justice Department had previously argued that the documents were exempt from disclosure under public records law.
The former president’s attorneys contend that such a disclosure would “constitute an unwarranted invasion of President Biden’s privacy.”
“Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” they wrote. “And when the U.S. Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the Department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure.”
The core of the dispute involves audio recordings and transcripts from Zwonitzer’s interviews with Biden at his home in 2016 and 2017.
Special counsel Robert Hur scrutinized these files during his investigation into the president’s retention of classified documents from his time as a senator and vice president.
Hur’s year-long probe culminated in a 345-page report that questioned Biden’s age and mental competence but ultimately recommended no criminal charges against the then-81-year-old, citing insufficient evidence for a successful prosecution.
That legal battle is distinct from Biden’s ongoing efforts to block the release of audio from his interview with Hur. In 2024, the House of Representatives voted to hold then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over the audio after the White House asserted executive privilege to shield it.
Transcripts of five hours of Biden’s interviews with federal prosecutors were released that same year.
While Biden maintained he took classified information seriously, the transcripts revealed instances in which he was unclear about dates and details, and he admitted he was unfamiliar with the paper trail for some sensitive documents he handled.
Republicans have criticized the Justice Department, alleging Biden received preferential treatment and that Trump was unfairly targeted by prosecutors.
Democrats, conversely, have emphasized Biden’s cooperation in the investigation, drawing a stark contrast with the separate criminal case against Trump, who faced accusations of refusing to return classified documents requested by the National Archives from his Florida estate.
In that case, Trump faced 40 separate charges stemming from allegations that he withheld hundreds of documents and obstructed law enforcement attempts to get them back.
Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon ultimately dismissed the case after agreeing with Trump’s attorneys that special counsel Jack Smith, who steered two sprawling federal cases against the president, was unconstitutionally appointed and funded. Smith’s team appealed that decision but dropped the case altogether after Trump won the 2024 presidential election.
