A federal appeals court found that former President Joe Biden is not entitled to an injunction prohibiting the release of audio recordings and transcripts of his interviews.
“The central question on the merits is whether Biden is likely to succeed in showing that a FOIA exemption applies to the requested materials and that the Privacy Act thus bars their disclosure,” Circuit Judges Sri Srinivasan and Gregory Katsas in Washington ruled. “While the requested recordings were not government records when originally created by Zwonitzer and Biden in connection with the preparation of Biden’s 2017 memoir, it is undisputed that they became subject to FOIA’s disclosure mandate when the Special Counsel obtained possession of them as part of his investigation.”
“[O]ur precedents compel concluding that the public interest in disclosure of the requested materials is substantial. The public has a ‘weighty’ and ‘significant’ interest in ‘shining a light’ on the Special Counsel’s investigation of a former Vice President for alleged mishandling and disclosure of classified information,” the ruling adds, going on to declare that “any remaining incursion on personal privacy from disclosure of the now-redacted materials likely does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure.”
Circuit Judge Florence Pan wrote in a dissent that Biden “has shown a substantial privacy interest.”
“Even if the substantial competing interests might ultimately weigh in favor of releasing the materials, there is no urgency that requires revealing them at this time,” Pan argued.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, blocked the release of audio recordings pending review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The ruling came hours after Friedrich denied Biden’s separate bid for a preliminary injunction, which would have stopped the release entirely.
