Biden drops appeal over release of memoir interview recordings

Joe Biden is declining to continue his appeal, clearing the way for the Justice Department to move toward releasing audio recordings and transcripts of his conversations with a memoir ghostwriter. A federal judge and a divided appeals panel concluded that the records can be disclosed under a legal standard that put public interest ahead of privacy.

The recordings are decade-old interviews Biden gave in 2016 and 2017, before he was elected president. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump nominee, ruled in June 2026 that the public interest in the material outweighed whatever privacy rights Biden still had, setting up the disclosure battle that followed. Biden then sought to block release at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

On July 20, a three-judge panel of that court rejected Biden’s bid in a 2-1 ruling. The panel said there was a “substantial” public interest in disclosing the material and said any remaining intrusion on personal privacy from the now-redacted recordings likely did not outweigh that interest. The order was stayed until Aug. 3, 2026, to give Biden time to pursue emergency relief, but his decision not to keep appealing leaves the material on track for public release unless another court steps in.

The case is tied to the Justice Department’s classified-documents investigation into Biden’s handling of sensitive records. Special Counsel Robert Hur’s Feb. 5, 2024 report examined the unauthorized removal, retention and disclosure of classified documents found at locations including the Penn Biden Center and Biden’s Delaware private residence. The memoir interviews later became part of that broader inquiry.