{"id":12874,"date":"2026-07-21T20:12:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T15:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=12874"},"modified":"2026-07-21T20:12:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T15:12:26","slug":"appeals-court-deals-biden-a-blow-in-bid-to-block-release-of-ghostwriters-recordings-and-transcripts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=12874","title":{"rendered":"Appeals Court Deals Biden a Blow in Bid to Block Release of Ghostwriter\u2019s Recordings and Transcripts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5642169\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5642169\" class=\"wp-image-5642169 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/07\/File-President-Joe-Biden-AP25138794631382-768x432-1.jpg\" alt=\"Joe Biden\" width=\"768\" height=\"432\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5642169\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stephanie Scarbrough\/AP Photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Former President <strong>Joe Biden&#8217;s<\/strong> effort to block the release of recordings and transcripts from his ghostwriter was derailed late Monday when a divided federal appeals court rejected the request.<\/p>\n<p>The three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found a &#8220;substantial&#8221; public interest in the material, which includes Biden&#8217;s conversations with the biographer from 2016 and 2017.<\/p>\n<p>One judge, Biden-nominated <strong>Florence Pan<\/strong>, disagreed with the ruling in a dissenting opinion in which she sided with the former president, saying he had a &#8220;substantial privacy interest&#8221; in keeping the material out of the spotlight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe conversations at issue took place in Biden\u2019s home, and the recordings of them were obtained by the government in the course of a criminal investigation that did not lead to an indictment,\u201d Pan found.<\/p>\n<p>But the materials have now been redacted, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/biden-special-counsel-heritage-foundation-ghostwriter-301b4f2f142dc3490e5d307761210786\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the majority of the panel found<\/a>, giving privacy concerns less weight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe conclude that any remaining incursion on personal privacy from disclosure of the now-redacted materials likely does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure,\u201d according to the ruling.<\/p>\n<p>The panel&#8217;s 2-1 ruling was paused until Aug. 3, to give Biden time to make another appeal.<\/p>\n<p>Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/government\/former-president-biden-sues-doj-over-release-interview-audio-2026-05-27\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sued in May<\/a> to halt the release of the material, which the Justice Department wanted to make public by June 15 after a request from the conservative Heritage Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>The foundation submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the ghostwriter&#8217;s materials after they became part of Special Counsel <strong>Robert Hur\u2019s<\/strong> 2023 probe of Biden\u2019s handling of classified documents.<\/p>\n<p>Hur&#8217;s investigation did not result in criminal charges but became a flashpoint in the debate over Biden&#8217;s age and fitness for office.<\/p>\n<p>President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/trump-angrily-responds-to-biden-suing-his-administration-crooked-politician\/\">raged on Truth Social in May<\/a> about Biden&#8217;s decision to sue his administration over the release of the materials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA Crooked Politician!!!\u201d the president\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/116644191612081208\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/appeals-court-deals-biden-a-blow-in-bid-to-block-release-of-ghostwriters-recordings-and-transcripts\/\">Appeals Court Deals Biden a Blow in Bid to Block Release of Ghostwriter\u2019s Recordings and Transcripts<\/a> first appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\">Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stephanie Scarbrough\/AP Photo Former President Joe Biden&#8217;s effort to block the release of recordings and transcripts from his ghostwriter was derailed late Monday when a divided federal appeals court rejected the request. The three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found a &#8220;substantial&#8221; public interest in the material,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/07\/File-President-Joe-Biden-AP25138794631382-768x432-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}