President Joe Biden has invoked executive privilege to prevent the release of audio from his interview with special counsel Robert Hur about potential mishandling of classified documents. The Biden White House argues that Republicans intend to misuse the recordings for political purposes.
The transcript of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur, which has been reviewed by some in the media, revealed Biden struggling with dates and details. However, the audio from the interview has been withheld, likely because it could portray Biden in an unfavorable light.
It was Attorney General Merrick Garland who advised Biden that the audio falls under executive privilege, protecting the president’s ability to receive candid counsel without immediate public disclosure. Garland described the request for the recordings as part of a series of “unprecedented and frankly unfounded attacks on the Justice Department,” warning that releasing the audio would undermine the integrity of future law enforcement investigations.
Hur, a former senior official in the Trump administration Justice Department, was appointed as a special counsel in January 2023 after classified documents were discovered in multiple locations associated with Biden. Hur’s report indicated that many documents found at the Penn Biden Center in Washington and Biden’s Delaware home were retained by mistake. However, there was evidence of willful retention and disclosure related to some records found in Biden’s Wilmington house.
These documents included records from the Obama administration’s troop surge in Afghanistan, which Biden opposed. Biden kept these records, including a classified letter to Obama, and shared some information with a ghostwriter for his memoirs published in 2007 and 2017.
The Justice Department has warned that pursuing contempt charges would create “unnecessary and unwarranted conflict.” The release of the audio has become a focal point in the broader Republican effort to challenge the Democratic president’s reelection campaign.
“Crooked Joe Biden and his feeble administration have irretrievably politicized the key constitutional tenet of executive privilege, denying it to their political opponents while aggressively trying to use it to run political cover for Crooked Joe.”
—Steven Cheung, Trump Campaign Spokesman