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Former President Biden on Friday dropped his lawsuit to block the public release of recordings from his interviews he gave to a memoir ghostwriter several years ago.
Biden’s lawyers filed a notice of voluntary dismissal in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., after a panel of circuit court judges rejected his petition to block this material’s release in a 2-1 ruling this week.
The former president sued the Justice Department in May to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, and the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.
Ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer interviewed Biden for the memoir at his home in 2016 and 2017 ahead of his election to the White House.
Attorneys for the former president said in their initial complaint that the release of these conversations could “constitute an unwarranted invasion of President Biden’s privacy.”
“Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” Biden’s lawyers wrote in this filing. “And when the U.S. Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the Department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure.”
The federal appeals court’s Monday ruling found that there was “substantial” public interest in releasing this material.
“We conclude that any remaining incursion on personal privacy from disclosure of the now-redacted materials likely does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure,” Judges Sri Srinivasan and Gregory Katsas wrote in their majority opinion.
Judge Florence Pan, who was appointed by Biden, was the lone dissenter.
“In my view, Biden has shown a substantial privacy interest,” she wrote in her dissenting opinion. “The conversations at issue took place in Biden’s home, and the recordings of them were obtained by the government in the course of a criminal investigation that did not lead to an indictment.”
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