President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) admitted Monday — the day after Biden dropped his reelection bid — it possessed transcripts of Biden’s interviews with his biographer after months of denying those transcripts existed.
The DOJ told a federal Judge Monday it had located transcripts of Biden’s chats with his biographer Mark Zwonitzer months after the conversations fell under the national spotlight, reported Politico.
Special counsel Robert Hur, appointed to investigate Biden’s retention of classified documents, invited scrutiny to the interviews after revealing in his March 2024 report that he would not bring charges against Biden in part because Biden was “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Republicans sought transcripts of the Biden and Zwonitzer conversations — as well as audio recordings of Hur’s interrogations of Biden.
Biden’s DOJ has fought efforts to turn over recordings, which Republicans have argued could reveal more than the transcripts about Biden’s mental state.
Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with Donald Trump amplified concerns from Republicans and Democrats on Biden’s capabilities. Biden ended his reelection bid Sunday after three brutal weeks of pressure from Democrats who feared his ability to run a campaign and defeat Trump in the aftermath of the debate.
President Joe Biden speaks during a presidential debate with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
The DOJ denied the existence of department-approved transcripts of the Zwonitzer tapes as recently as a June 18 congressional hearing.
According to Politico:
“We don’t have some transcript that’s been created by the special counsel that we can attest to its accuracy,” Justice Department lawyer Cameron Silverberg told Friedrich at the June 18 hearing on a suit brought by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
However, [DOJ lawyer Cameron] Silverberg said in a court filing Monday night that the department “in the past few days” confirmed that Hur’s office had transcripts made of a portion of Biden’s discussions with Zwonitzer, which occurred as Biden worked with him on memoirs published in 2007 and 2017. Prosecutors determined that some of those conversations contained classified information, although they were barred by Justice Department policy from pursuing charges against a sitting president and said they would not have done so in any event because of the imprecision of Biden’s memory and other factors.
The timing, one day after Biden ended his campaign, earned the ire of Republicans and conservative groups that had previously sought the documents.
“Now that Biden’s not running, it’s AMAZING what info DOJ can cough up,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) posted.
Now that Biden’s not running, it’s AMAZING what info DOJ can cough up https://t.co/ClTb0YjDqB
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 23, 2024
House Republicans held Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt in June for refusing to comply with a subpoena demanding the audio recordings and other requested materials.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
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