Recently released tapes of former President Joe Biden’s conversations with the ghostwriter of his 2017 memoir reveal he admitted to retaining classified documents and already had notable memory issues.
The Oversight Project’s Mike Howell was the plaintiff in the case fighting for the release of the tapes, which Biden’s team has long fought against. However, the former president’s attorneys dropped their bid to prevent the release, resulting in the recordings and transcripts from his conversations with his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer for the 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad being made public.
“We now know what has been long assumed: the autopen scandal extends far back beyond just when Joe Biden ‘ran’ for president from his basement,” Oversight Project President Mike Howell said in a statement. “These tapes have so many pauses and ‘ums’ that it sounds like Biden is buffering like a dial-up Internet connection.”
In total, there are 2 hours and 45 minutes of recordings and a heavily redacted transcript of the conversations, which showcase Biden’s poor memory and feature a variety of long pauses as he struggled to remember dates, order of events, and people.
“I think I went to that memorial service in Wilmington. It says [REDACTED] December the 4th, but I don’t — I know what this means. Memorial service — [REDACTED] gets names really f—ed up,” Biden said. “So it says memorial service for [REDACTED]. I don’t think her name was [REDACTED]. Or I forget [REDACTED].”
“I’ll think of his name,” Biden said in another part of the recording, adding, “I should write the names down because I keep forgetting them.”
He also openly discussed retaining classified information, even warning Zwonitzer at one point, “Some of this may be classified so be careful with it.”
He also said, “So this was, I early on, um, in ’09 I just found all the classified stuff downstairs.” In another section, Biden states, “The next thing I have here is, um, this is classified …”
This connects with the investigation by special counsel Robert Hur, who led the Biden classified documents investigation. As Breitbart News reported in 2024, “Hur’s investigation, which concluded in February, found Biden ‘willfully’ retained classified documents but [Hur] declined to prosecute him, citing ‘insufficient evidence.’”
Hur characterized Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” At the time, Biden could not remember when he announced his candidacy, when he stopped serving as vice president, or when his son Beau died.
The Oversight Project noted that people should not overlook the number of redactions in the transcript, explaining that it indicates that Biden was revealing sensitive information.
“At several points in the tapes, Biden references the information he is reviewing is likely classified, which is followed by significant audio redactions for classified information,” Oversight Project said. “This was not just once or twice, these classified redactions cover significant portions of the audio files released.
“The listener shouldn’t overlook the audio redactions because those redactions are intended to cover the disclosure of classified information,” the group emphasized.
All the audio recordings can be found here.
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