Judge gives DOJ green light to turn Biden’s audio files over to the Heritage Foundation

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A federal judge on Friday rejected an effort by former President Joe Biden to block the Justice Department from turning over hours of nearly decade-old audio conversations to the Heritage Foundation.

Biden’s lawyers immediately launched an injunction pending appeal.

But it could mean a major blow for the former president, who in May sued the DOJ to block the release of the recordings. Heritage contends the audio files contain proof that the former president mishandled classified information, which Biden has emphatically denied.

Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, wrote in her ruling that the former president’s privacy concerns “though substantial,” paled in comparison to the significant public interest in the case and were mitigated by extensive redactions undertaken by the DOJ.

Author Mark Zwonitzer’s redacted materials, Friedrich wrote, “contain no information about Biden’s family or other private persons. She herself reviewed them personally in advance of her ruling.”

The conservative think tank has long been embroiled in a legal fight with Biden over the audio, which contains hours of conversations the former president had in 2017 with Zwonitzer for a memoir about the death of his eldest son, Beau. The files were obtained by the DOJ during Special Counsel Robert Hur’s 2023 investigation into Biden’s alleged sharing of classified records.

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