Biden told ghostwriter he ‘found all the classified stuff downstairs’
Audio recordings released Monday by House Republicans capture former President Joe Biden acknowledging that he retained classified material after leaving the vice presidency in January 2017, telling his ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, that he “found all the classified stuff downstairs.”
The recordings total more than two hours and were made during the drafting of Biden’s 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad. In one excerpt from February 2017, Biden says: “I just found all the classified stuff downstairs.” In another from October 2016, while still vice president, Biden tells Zwonitzer: “I have extensive notes over this period of time… They [the White House] didn’t know I have this.” At another point, Biden says: “The next thing I have here is, um, this is classified.”
The release comes after a protracted legal battle. Biden’s personal lawyers sued the Justice Department in May to block the release, but dropped the lawsuit after legal defeats. The case had drawn attention to the parallel between Biden’s handling of classified records and that of President Donald Trump, who was accused of illegally retaining classified documents but saw charges dropped after returning to the White House.
Special Counsel Robert Hur obtained the recordings in 2024 during an investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents. Hur found that Biden had improperly retained records but declined to recommend charges, in part because, he wrote, a jury might view Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Biden’s spokesperson, TJ Ducklo, said in a statement that releasing the tapes was “just the latest example of this Administration weaponizing the DOJ for political retribution.” He said Biden disagreed with the decision but “respects the courts and the vital role an independent judiciary plays in a healthy democracy.”
House Republicans on the Oversight Committee, who obtained the recordings through subpoenas and a lawsuit by the conservative nonprofit Oversight Project, released the audio with redactions in portions the committee said cover classified information.