A federal judge on Friday rejected Joe Biden’s attempt to block the Trump administration from releasing audio recordings he made with a ghostwriter, ruling that the public interest in the material outweighed the former president’s privacy claims.
The recordings date to 2017 and were obtained by special counsel Robert Hur during his investigation into whether Biden improperly retained classified documents while a senator and vice president. Hur declined to file charges against Biden, who was still president at the time. Republicans in Congress subsequently demanded the materials, and after Biden’s Democratic administration refused to turn them over, lawmakers held then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress.
The Department of Justice under Donald Trump authorized the release. Biden sued last month to block the handover to a staffer at the conservative Heritage Foundation who had formally requested the records.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, nominated to the bench by Trump in 2017, ruled against Biden. In her written order, Friedrich found that the materials “contain no mention of highly sensitive topics like illness or death, nor do they mention any non-public persons, including members of Biden’s family.” The administration had redacted any such sensitive material before the release, the judge wrote.
Biden had objected to the release as an invasion of privacy, arguing the recordings included discussions of sensitive personal matters such as the death of his older son, Beau Biden. Friedrich’s ruling concluded that the redactions addressed those concerns.
Representatives for Biden did not immediately comment but asked Friedrich to bar release of the material while they appeal her decision. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.