Judge blocks Biden's attempt to stop audio release

A federal judge has denied former President Joe Biden's request to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts from interviews he conducted for his memoir, clearing a path for the Justice Department to provide the materials to a conservative advocacy group and Congress. U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich ruled on Friday, June 19, 2026, that the significant public interest in understanding the basis for a special counsel's decision not to pursue criminal charges outweighs Biden's privacy concerns.

The ruling allows the Justice Department to release the materials, with certain redactions, to the Heritage Foundation, which sued for them under the Freedom of Information Act. The group and congressional Republicans have sought the recordings following a 2024 report by former special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Biden's handling of classified documents after his vice presidency. In that report, Hur described Biden as a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," a characterization that fueled political debate about the president's fitness for office during the 2024 campaign.

The approximately 70 hours of audio were recorded in 2016 and 2017...