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A federal appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked the Department of Justice from releasing audio recordings of former President Joe Biden’s interviews with his ghostwriter while it considers Biden’s emergency request to keep the material sealed.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an administrative injunction preventing the Justice Department from turning over approximately 70 hours of recordings to the Heritage Foundation and Mike Howell, the former director of its Oversight Project, until July 20.
The panel, consisting of Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judges Gregory Katsas and Florence Pan, said the order is intended only to preserve the status quo while the court considers Biden’s request for a longer injunction pending appeal.
According to CBS News, the unsigned order stated it “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits.”
The temporary order pauses a June decision by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, who rejected Biden’s effort to prevent the recordings’ release under the Freedom of Information Act.
In her ruling, Friedrich concluded that after Justice Department redactions, the recordings “contain no information about Biden’s family or other private persons.” She determined that the public interest in disclosure outweighed what she described as Biden’s reduced privacy interest.
The recordings were made during interviews Biden conducted with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer in 2016 and 2017 while preparing his memoir, Promise Me, Dad.
Federal investigators later obtained the recordings during former Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents after serving as vice president.
Hur’s February 2024 report concluded that Biden had willfully retained and disclosed classified information, including by reading some material aloud to Zwonitzer. However, Hur declined to recommend criminal charges, writing that a jury would likely view Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
The Heritage Foundation requested the recordings through a Freedom of Information Act request in 2024. The Biden administration declined to release them, but the Trump administration later reversed that position, prompting Biden to file suit to block disclosure, arguing the recordings captured private conversations inside his home.
The appeals court is expected to decide before July 20 whether to extend the injunction while Biden’s appeal continues. Until then, the temporary order remains in effect.