A conservative activist group has released audio recordings and transcripts that appear to show Joe Biden sharing sensitive information with his book ghostwriter, Mark Lewis Zwonitzer, and at times struggling to recall certain details during interviews that took place before his 2020 presidential victory.
The Oversight Project, a branch of the Heritage Foundation, released roughly three hours of audio along with 117 pages of transcripts — many sections of which were blacked out — after Biden failed in a lengthy legal effort to keep the recorded conversations secret.
In one recording from October 2016, near the close of his second term serving as Barack Obama’s vice president, Biden can be heard telling Zwonitzer, “They didn’t even know I had this,” while discussing sensitive foreign policy matters handled by the administration.
During a 2017 recording session — after Biden had departed the White House but before announcing his own presidential run — he appeared to acknowledge holding onto classified material from his time as vice president.
“I just found all the classified stuff downstairs,” Biden said in the recording. “I wrote the President a handwritten 40-page memorandum arguing against deploying additional troops to Iraq — I mean, to Afghanistan on the grounds that it wouldn’t matter, that the day we left would be like the day before we arrived.”
Any potentially classified details are redacted in both the audio and the transcripts released by the Oversight Project.
The conservative group originally filed a lawsuit seeking access to the tapes after Special Counsel Robert Hur decided in 2024 not to bring charges against Biden over his handling of classified materials. Biden had cooperated with Hur’s investigation and told the special counsel during his presidency that he never intentionally mishandled classified documents.
When Hur announced his decision not to prosecute, he noted his belief that a jury would view Biden sympathetically due to his age and what Hur called a “poor memory” — a characterization that ignited significant public debate about Biden’s age and whether he was fit to serve as president.
Biden was 74 years old when the recorded interviews began. By early 2024, when Hur released his report, Biden was 81 and pursuing a second term in office, though he later withdrew from the race following a widely criticized debate performance against Republican Donald Trump.
The recordings include moments where Biden was unable to remember certain dates and details he was discussing with Zwonitzer, though they also show him recalling many specifics from meetings and conversations tied to notes he had shared.
Jeff Clark, Vice President of Litigation at the Oversight Project, argued the tapes confirm Biden’s mental decline. “The tapes have always belonged to the American People, the Oversight Project just delivered them to their rightful owner,” Clark said in a statement. “The knowledge of his deterioration was well-established.”
A Biden spokesman sharply criticized the release, calling it politically driven. “President Biden’s conversations for a book a decade ago that discussed his late son are private, and were provided to the Department of Justice on the express condition they stay that way,” said TJ Ducklo. “Reversing course and making them public is just the latest example of this Administration weaponizing the DOJ for political retribution.”
Biden had initially gone to court to prevent the Justice Department from releasing the material, arguing the conversations were private. He dropped that legal challenge after a divided appellate panel rejected his request. Biden had the option to seek Supreme Court intervention or request a rehearing before the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit but did not do so.
In a 2-1 decision, the three-judge appellate panel concluded there was a “substantial” public interest in making the material available.
