Former President Joe Biden is suing the Justice Department to block the release of private audio recordings conducted while he was working with a memoir ghostwriter several years ago.

The DOJ plans to release the tapes and transcript on June 15, prompted by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from the Heritage Foundation filed in 2024 and a request from House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan made in March of this year. Biden’s suit seeks to permanently prevent the department from releasing information to the committee.

The recordings and transcripts Biden made with Mark Zwonitzer for the 2017 book titled “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose” are expected to be edited for privacy and not include classified information.

The suit argues the Judiciary request is a superficial attempt to disclose Biden’s conversations “for the sake of exposure, among other improper purposes.” The DOJ informed Biden’s counsel of Jordan’s request on March 19, though the document was dated four days later.

The 70 hours of partially redacted audio recordings in question were obtained by investigators during special counsel Robert Hur’s 2023 probe into Biden’s handling of classified documents. Those materials were only meant for Executive Branch use as evidence with the caveat that Biden would be notified in advance should they be disclosed to outside parties, including Congress. Hur eventually declined to bring charges against Biden.

Though the Biden administration had already released transcripts from the former president’s conversations with Hur, an audio leak last May brought into question the special counsel’s characterization of their discussions.

In a 388-page report, Hur described Biden as “a sympathetic, well meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” — but also noted the former president “did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.”

Partial transcripts of the conversations between Biden and Hur released in 2024 revealed the president had some difficulty remembering the chronology of events but had no issue explaining the profound impact Beau’s death had on his life.

“What month did Beau die? Oh God, May 30,” Biden wondered aloud during the early stages of the conversation. “Was it 2015 when he died?” Biden asked, citing the correct year for his son’s passing.

In an audio file released by Axios in 2025, the former president’s pauses and occasional slurring of words became more apparent.

Biden’s suit argues the DOJ had properly withheld the materials in the past under FOIA laws that exempted them from disclosure, especially since the investigation has been closed for years, but President Donald Trump’s administration had suddenly reversed the government’s position in February. The agency’s “about-face” came after it already ruled that disclosing the material would be an invasion of privacy — and after Biden has reentered society as a private citizen — the suit argues.

The Judiciary’s request is rooted in a political agenda, not a legislative one, the suit argues, quoting Jordan’s interview with Fox News this month about the transcripts.

“We’d like to see all that information, I think, to underscore what the Democrats were trying to hide just a few years ago,” Jordan said on May 12.