Former President Joseph R. Biden is heard on newly released tapes telling a ghostwriter that he had classified material and was sharing it for his 2017 memoir, for which he received an $8 million advance.
Mr. Biden read classified notes “nearly verbatim” to the writer, Mark Zwonitzer, for the book “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose,” which was published a year after Mr. Biden’s two terms as vice president ended and while he was contemplating a presidential run.
The 70 hours of recordings released by the House Judiciary Committee this week reveal Mr. Biden acknowledging some of the material, which he removed while serving as vice president and during his time in the Senate, was top secret.
“The next thing I have here is classified,” Mr. Biden is heard saying to Mr. Zwonitzer during one of their interviews.
On another recording, Mr. Biden, then a former vice president, told Mr. Zwonitzer, “Some of this may be classified, so be careful with it.”
Mr. Biden tells Mr. Zwonitzer in another conversation, “The next thing I have here is, um, this is classified.”
In a fourth conversation about events during his second year as vice president, he tells Mr. Zwonitzer, “I just found all the classified stuff downstairs.”
Mr. Biden also appears to reveal he held on to important documents from the White House, telling Mr. Zwonitzer, “I didn’t want to turn them in.”
House Republicans released the tapes after years of legal battles with Mr. Biden, who sought to keep the audio private.
The tapes were used by special counsel Robert Hur in his investigation, which concluded with a February 2024 report of Mr. Biden’s possession of classified documents.
The documents were discovered at Mr. Biden’s Delaware home and in an office at his Washington think tank, the Penn Biden Center.
Some of the material was found in a damaged box in his garage. The Hur report identified documents originating from Mr. Biden’s time in the Senate, dating to the 1980s, and his vice presidential years, from 2009 to 2017.
In a Feb. 8, 2024, press conference after the release of Mr. Hur’s report, Mr. Biden said he was “surprised to learn” that classified material was in his office and that he did not know what was in the documents.
After listening to the tapes, Mr. Hur noted Mr. Biden’s significant memory lapses, which he cited in his decision not to charge the president. However, Mr. Hur determined that Mr. Biden’s mishandling of documents — which included Obama administration foreign policy and military decisions regarding Afghanistan — “present serious risks to national security if disclosed.”
On the recordings, Mr. Biden frequently struggles to recall details from a year or two earlier and loses track of conversations. While trying to remember events from a 2015 Munich conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he acknowledges, “I’m confused.” At another point, he loses his train of thought mid-question: “I was going to ask you something else. Uhhh. Ummm. Oh gosh. I can’t think what it is.”
Although Mr. Hur declined to prosecute Mr. Biden for illegally possessing and storing the classified documents, the Justice Department, under Mr. Biden, prosecuted Donald Trump for taking and storing classified information at his Mar-a-Lago home after his first term in the White House.
In an unprecedented move, the FBI raided Mr. Trump’s residence and confiscated the material in 2022. Special counsel Jack Smith charged the former president in 2023 with mishandling classified material. Mr. Trump, who as president had the authority to declassify documents, said he did nothing illegal.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case against Mr. Trump in 2024.
Republicans said the 2017 audiotapes belie Mr. Biden’s claim that he had no idea about the secret documents in his home and office.
“Biden knew he was sharing classified information with his ghostwriter,” Judiciary Committee Republicans said.
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