Biden sues Justice Department to block release of files from biographer interviews

Former President Joe Biden has filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department seeking to block the release of files related to interviews he conducted with a biographer that later became a central part of a special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents . Biden's lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeks to block the Justice Department from releasing about 70 hours of audio files and transcripts to the House Judiciary Committee from interviews with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer that were used for his 2017 memoir "Promise Me, Dad." The interviews were conducted in 2016 and 2017. Biden and his attorneys have long maintained that the files are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. The suit comes after three separate Freedom of Information Act lawsuits were previously filed attempting to unseal them. In one suit involving the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, attorneys for the Justice Department told a federal judge earlier this month they planned to release the files, with redactions, to both the committee and the Heritage Foundation on June 15 barring a ruling on the issue. Mr. Biden asserted executive privilege over the recordings in 2024 after House Republicans attempted to access them. CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department for comment on the complaint. …