Newly released audio recordings capture Joe Biden telling his memoir ghostwriter that material they were reviewing was classified, and that he had found "all the classified stuff downstairs" years earlier, raising fresh questions about why he was never prosecuted.
The recordings, nearly two hours and 45 minutes of conversations between Biden and ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, became public after Biden's attorneys dropped their lawsuit to keep the tapes sealed. The Oversight Project, a conservative watchdog group, fought a two-year legal battle to pry them loose. A federal appeals court had already ruled 2-1 that the public interest in disclosure was "substantial," and Biden's legal team voluntarily dismissed the case rather than continue the fight.
What the tapes reveal is damning on two fronts: Biden knowingly handled classified material outside secure government channels, and his memory was already faltering badly during the 2017 sessions, years before he asked voters to put him in the Oval Office.
In one exchange captured on the recordings, Biden can be heard cautioning Zwonitzer directly.
"Some of this may be classified so be careful with it."
In another segment, Biden referenced material from 2009, when he was serving as vice president: "So this was, I early on, um, in '09 I just found all the classified stuff downstairs." At yet another point, he told Zwonitzer, "The next thing I have here is, um, this is classified..."
These were not offhand remarks. The Oversight Project noted that Biden's references to classified material were followed by significant audio redactions, redactions applied specifically to cover the disclosure of classified information. The group's statement put it bluntly: "The silence of the redactions loudly demonstrates that Biden knowingly and willfully disclosed classified information to his ghostwriter."
Special Counsel Robert Hur's 2024 investigation found that Biden shared classified information with Zwonitzer on at least three occasions. Hur's report, cited by National Review, stated that Biden "read classified notes from national security meetings to Zwonitzer nearly verbatim." The ghostwriter had no security clearance. Biden had known since at least 2011 that Zwonitzer would need clearance to access such material.
Yet Hur declined to prosecute. His reasoning was not that Biden was innocent, it was that a jury might see the former president as, in Hur's own words, "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." That framing spared Biden a criminal charge. But the tapes now give the public the raw evidence to judge for themselves.
The recordings do not paint a picture of a man in firm command of his own history. Biden struggled repeatedly with names, dates, and the order of events, during sessions meant to produce his own autobiography.
At one point, Biden said: "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." He continued: "So it says memorial service for [REDACTED]. I don't think her name was [REDACTED]. Or I forget [REDACTED]."
Elsewhere on the tapes, Biden admitted, "I'll think of his name," and later: "I should write the names down because I keep forgetting them."
Oversight Project President Mike Howell did not hold back about what the recordings reveal. "These tapes have so many pauses and 'ums' that it sounds like Biden is buffering like a dial-up Internet connection," Howell said.
Hur's own investigation corroborated the pattern. The special counsel concluded that Biden's memory was "significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017 and in his interview with our office in 2023," Fox News reported. That finding, covering a six-year span, means the cognitive decline was not a late-onset surprise. It was visible before Biden ever launched his 2020 campaign.
The Democratic Party nonetheless rallied behind Biden for the 2020 race and defended his fitness for office throughout his presidency. That posture looks increasingly difficult to sustain. The party's broader struggle with credibility and leadership has surfaced in other ways, Sen. Cory Booker recently said Democrats "desperately" need new leadership as the party stumbles ahead of the midterms.
The scope of Biden's mishandling went beyond carelessness. Hur's report found that Biden retained classified notes containing intelligence on military sources, methods, and capabilities. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Biden used those materials for personal financial gain, he and Jill Biden earned more than $15.6 million from book deals and speaking fees between 2017 and 2019.
Biden's own recorded words undercut his later public defense. When the classified documents story broke in late 2022, Biden claimed he had "immediately" turned over classified documents upon discovering them. But the tapes show he acknowledged having "classified stuff" at his home as early as a February 2017 conversation, and referenced finding it "downstairs" back in 2009. That is a gap of more than a decade between discovery and disclosure.
Hur called Biden's claim that he used the word "classified" only in a "generic sense" during the ghostwriter sessions "incredible," noting Biden had nearly 50 years of experience dealing with classified information. A man who spent decades on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and eight years as vice president knew what "classified" meant.
The ghostwriter's own conduct raised additional red flags. Zwonitzer allegedly deleted audio recordings from his computer after the classified-documents investigation began. FBI specialists later recovered the files. Hur declined to bring charges over the deletion. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan demanded Zwonitzer produce communications, contracts, payments, audio recordings, and transcripts related to Biden's memoirs, setting a deadline of February 23rd.
The pattern of concealment extended to Biden's legal team, which fought for months to block the tapes' release before finally abandoning the effort. Jeff Clark, vice president of litigation for the Oversight Project, said the decision to give Biden a pass "must now be reexamined from top to bottom." The question of what Democratic leaders knew about Biden's condition, and when, is one the party has never fully answered. It fits a pattern of evasion that has dogged Democrats on multiple fronts, from Hakeem Jeffries stumbling when confronted with Biden-era economic numbers to candidates caught in outright dishonesty.
The accompanying transcript runs 117 pages and is heavily redacted. Just the News reported that the redactions cover classified information related to National Security Council meetings involving figures who later served in Biden's cabinet, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
The Oversight Project emphasized that the redactions themselves are evidence. "The listener shouldn't overlook the audio redactions because those redactions are intended to cover the disclosure of classified information," the group stated. "This was not just once or twice, these classified redactions cover significant portions of the audio files released."
Howell framed the release in broader terms: "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." His group's statement concluded: "The tapes have always belonged to the American People, the Oversight Project just delivered them to their rightful owner."
The scandal fits a wider pattern of political deception that has eroded public trust, a pattern visible in episodes ranging from recently declassified intelligence about foreign efforts to manipulate U.S. media to Democratic candidates whose claims of ignorance about their own conduct don't hold up under scrutiny.
Hur's investigation concluded in February 2024. He found that Biden "willfully" retained classified documents but said the evidence fell short of proving Biden shared them with Zwonitzer willfully, a legal distinction that shielded the former president from prosecution. The tapes, where Biden explicitly warns his ghostwriter that the material is classified, make that distinction harder to defend.
Biden was not charged. Zwonitzer was not charged. The recordings were suppressed for two years. And the man whose memory was already failing in 2017 went on to serve four years as commander-in-chief with access to the nation's most sensitive secrets.
The public now has the tapes. Whether anyone in a position of authority has the will to act on them is another question entirely, but the recordings speak for themselves, and they do not speak well of the people who kept them hidden.