Newly released Biden audio recordings include references to ‘classified’ material and struggles with memory

By Holmes Lybrand, Annie Grayer, Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Logan Schiciano, CNN

(CNN) — Audio clips released by the right-wing Oversight Project on Monday of former-President Joe Biden’s conversations with his biographer, Mark Lewis Zwonitzer, appears to support what former Special Counsel Robert Hur found in his 2024 report: Biden disclosed classified material, was forgetful and continued to possess classified material after leaving his post as vice president.

In the audio tapes, Biden can be heard cavalierly discussing the notes he kept from his time as vice president as he showed them to Zwonitzer.

“They didn’t even know I had this,” Biden said while apparently showing the ghostwriter his old notes as reference points in their discussion of allegedly classified foreign policy matters during his VP days. The information is still redacted in the audio clips.

The tapes were released by the Oversight Project, a branch of the conservative think-tank powerhouse Heritage Foundation, who had successfully sued the Justice Department to release them. Biden had fought the release to no avail, ultimately deciding to stop the battle by withdrawing his legal challenges on Monday.

In multiple instances in the audio tapes, Biden has trouble remembering dates and information during the interviews with his ghostwriter. In the Hur report, Biden is described as an elderly man “with a poor memory.”

Hur ultimately decided not to bring a case against Biden in part because of Biden’s cooperation, which supported the notion that he had not intentionally broken the law but instead did so mistakenly. But Biden’s poor memory and elderly disposition also weighed into the decision and how a jury might respond to such prosecution.

A representative for Biden declined to comment on the release of the audio clips.

In a previous statement, Biden spokesperson TJ Ducklo said,

“Since March 2024, the Oversight Project and the Heritage Foundation fought tooth and nail to bring these tapes to light,” the group said in a statement on Monday. “Together, we defeated both the Biden-led Justice Department and his high-price private attorneys. These tapes we are releasing today should have come out a long time ago.”

Allegedly classified material

Biden said to his ghostwriter that he had “just found” classified documents and then proceeded to lay out his case for why in 2009 he argued against then-President Barack Obama sending troops to Afghanistan.

“So this was – I, early on, in ’09 – I just found all of the classified stuff downstairs. I wrote the President a handwritten 40-page memorandum arguing against deploying additional troops to Iraq – I mean, to Afghanistan on the grounds that it wouldn’t matter, that the day we left would be like the day before we arrived” Biden said.

In another interview with the ghostwriter, Biden referred to classified information, but the context was unclear.

“And then — and then the next thing I have here is — this is classified,” Biden said.

Biden’s relationship with Obama

Biden said former President Barack Obama used to really “get pissed” at him over disagreements on how to handle the economy in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

“I was a really lonely voice on housing, I was a lonely voice on the middle class. I mean, I thought we should be much more aggressive than putting these guys in jail and the bankers,” he said. “I mean, he used to really get pissed at me,” he added, referring to Obama.

He said the reason the administration did not do more was because Obama his allies were “subconsciously” beholden to “Silicon Valley.”

“I think the reason why we didn’t do more, by the way, is because I think that — this is a harsh thing to say — But I think subconsciously, at least, Barack and his guys were beholden to Silicon Valley,” he said. “And the valley guys didn’t want the shit that I — you know, I wanted,” he said.

Biden also said that Obama backed away from a “promise” to appoint Larry Summers to the Federal Reserve because the prominent economist was a “liability.”

“He was, you know, Harvard and women,” Biden told Zwonitzer. Summers, who once served as Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and as president of Harvard University, has caught backlash over his ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Biden said that one thing he wasn’t focused on while the administration was trying to save the economy was “how rapidly the economy was changing.”

“I wasn’t focused on robots and artificial intelligence and, and digitalization and Moore’s law. I mean, it was all about — and I really believed that, and I still believe it, that we could bring back the manufacturing in America,” he said.

Deciding whether to run

The tapes also included a several-minutes-long recollection from Biden of a lunch meeting with Obama, where Biden said the then-president gave him advice about whether he should run for president in 2016.

“He said it’s my decision to run or not. It doesn’t have to do with the field,” Biden recalled.

Biden indicated that Obama questioned whether his vice president could win the nomination over Hillary Clinton, saying that it would “really be an uphill battle,” according to Biden.

“The fact is that he didn’t think it was doable at that time, that I could, that I could actually go out and get the nomination,” Biden said. “That was my read at the time.”

It’s not clear from the recording when the meeting between Biden and Obama took place, though Biden provided the details to his ghostwriter just days before the 2016 election, on November 3, 2016.

Biden talked to the ghostwriter about various meetings he had with top advisors strategizing about whether he should announce a run for president, how he should frame his candidacy and when he should announce. In the audio recording, Biden does not specify the year the meetings took place.

“Consensus is that it’s no longer a question about is the race doable, it is, the question was when would I need to show my hand to be plausible, he said.

In another meeting, Biden recalled one of his advisers telling him, “you have the ability to be a unifier, a reassuring skill. Hillary is divisive and Bernie is too angry.”

Biden also discussed with aides what some of his challenges as a candidate would be and one mentioned his gaffes as one of the many obstacles he would have to overcome.

“Gaffe issue, is like a virus. I’s dormant, when you make a mistake again they’ll bring it up” Biden said, appearing to be reading from his notes.

“I can’t read my own writing” the former president said at one point.

This headline and story have been updated with additional detials.

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