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June 19, 2026 / 4:47 PM EDT
/ CBS News
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Washington — A federal judge on Friday cleared the way for the Justice Department to give a conservative think tank a redacted transcript and recordings of former President Joe Biden's decade-old conversations with his biographer, Mark Zwonitzer.In a 26-page decision, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich denied Biden's bid to stop the Justice Department from disclosing the material to the Heritage Foundation. The judge said Biden's privacy interests in the case are mitigated by "extensive redactions" by the Justice Department.The government had agreed to delay the release of the material to the Heritage Foundation until 5 p.m. Friday."Biden has not identified any public harm that would arise absent an injunction in this case," Friedrich wrote. "And, as with the Department's FOIA balancing discussed above, the harm to Biden's diminished privacy interest is outweighed by the public's interest in the Zwonitzer materials and FOIA's 'policy of broad disclosure of Government documents in order to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society.'"On the heels of Friedrich's decision, Biden's lawyers filed an emergency motion asking the judge to block the disclosure of the transcript and tapes to the Heritage Foundation while it appeals her decision."This Court should grant an injunction pending appeal to prevent an irreversible change in the status quo," they wrote. "President Biden's motion for a preliminary injunction raises serious legal questions, and the disclosure of his private conversations cannot be undone. The resulting damage to his privacy and to weighty law enforcement interests will be permanent."The dispute over Biden's discussions stems from a Freedom of Information Act request that the Heritage Foundation filed in March 2024. The group sought records that former special counsel Robert Hur relied on to write specific portions of his report on Biden's handling of sensitive government records, which included passages referring to the former president's recorded conversations with Zwonitzer in 2016 and 2017.
