Joe Biden repeatedly referred retaining classified information and appeared confused at times in newly released audio tapes of the former president’s conversations with his ghostwriter.
The heavily redacted recordings of Biden working on his 2017 memoir with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer were released Monday to the House Judiciary Committee and the conservative Oversight Project nonprofit after a two-year-long court battle.
The tapes were previously scrutinized by former special counsel Robert Hur as part of his 2023-2024 investigation into Biden’s retention of classified documents after leaving the vice presidency in 2017.
“So this was, I early on, um, in ’09 I just found all the classified stuff downstairs,” Biden is heard telling Zwonitzer in one snippet from the roughly 70 hours of recordings.
“Some of this may be classified so be careful with it,” the 46th president warns his ghostwriter at one point. “I’m not sure … It’s not marked classified but —”
During Zwonitzer’s interviews with Biden — for the 2017 book, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose” — the former president read “nearly verbatim” from notebooks that contained sensitive national security and foreign policy, according to Hur’s 2024 report on the classified documents investigation.
On the tapes, Biden could be heard discovering classified material in real time as he leafed through papers with Zwonitzer nearby.
“The next thing I have here is, um, this is classified …” Biden says in another snippet.
The former president also described potentially classified White House meetings with Zwonitzer, according to CBS News, which first reviewed the tapes, including “a big meeting with the CIA and everyone,” “a big meeting down in the Situation Room,” and “a long meeting where DOD brief … POTUS.”
In an Oct. 10, 2016, recording, Biden brags that he retained notes without anyone being aware.
“I have extensive notes over this period of time … They didn’t know I have this,” he said, according to the outlet.
The tapes also show Biden struggled to remember certain events, and lost his train of thought at several points during his conversations with Zwonitzer.
“Alright — what was I going to ask you? Something else … Uh… um. Oh gosh. I can’t think of anything else,” the former president is heard saying at one point.
In another moment, Biden asks his ghostwriter to “Hang on a second,” while he apparently studies his notes. “Um … it’s confusing me,” the former president later says.
Hur found that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” after leaving the vice presidency but refused to charge the then-sitting president because he 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.”
