Newly released audio recordings capture Joe Biden telling his memoir ghostwriter in 2017 that he had found "all the classified stuff downstairs", an admission that predates his presidency and undercuts years of efforts to keep the tapes sealed.
Biden's own words, recorded during sessions with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer for his 2017 book Promise Me, Dad, are now public after his attorneys abandoned a lawsuit to block their release. The roughly 70 hours of recordings were obtained during Special Counsel Robert Hur's investigation into Biden's handling of classified materials. Two hours and 45 minutes of audio, along with a heavily redacted transcript, landed in public view on July 27 after a federal court cleared the way and Biden's legal team dropped its fight to keep them sealed.
The recordings matter because they capture Biden, in his own voice, years before he ran for president, acknowledging that he possessed classified information at his home and warning Zwonitzer to handle it carefully. In one exchange, Biden says plainly: "So this was, I early on, um, in '09 I just found all the classified stuff downstairs." In another, he cautions: "Some of this may be classified so be careful with it." A third time, he tells Zwonitzer: "The next thing I have here is, um, this is classified..."
Each of those references is followed by redactions in the transcript and audio, redactions that, according to The Oversight Project, "are intended to cover the disclosure of classified information."
The recordings go beyond the classified-material admissions. In an October 2016 session, while Biden was still vice president, he told Zwonitzer he had extensive personal notes the White House was unaware of. Newsmax reported Biden's words from that session:
"I have extensive notes over this period of time.... They didn't know I have this."
That statement places Biden's retention of sensitive materials not in the fog of post-presidency transition, but squarely during his time as vice president, when he had no authority to declassify documents on his own. And it shows a sitting vice president aware that his possession of these materials was unknown to the White House.
A February 16, 2017 recording, made roughly a month after Biden left office, captured the now-famous line about finding "all the classified stuff downstairs" at what Newsmax identified as his Virginia home. The timeline is significant: Biden left office in January 2017 and was already sitting with a ghostwriter, referencing classified documents in his possession, by February.
Special Counsel Robert Hur's investigation, which concluded in February 2024, examined Biden's handling of classified documents. Hur's 345-page report found that Biden "willfully" retained classified materials and had shared classified information with Zwonitzer, according to AP News. But Hur declined to prosecute, stating he believed a jury would see Biden as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
That characterization drew fury from Biden and his allies at the time. But the newly released recordings suggest Hur's description was, if anything, generous. The tapes reveal Biden struggling repeatedly with basic recall, names, dates, and the sequence of events in his own life.
In one passage from the transcript, Biden says: "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." Moments later: "So it says memorial service for [REDACTED]. I don't think her name was [REDACTED]. Or I forget [REDACTED]."
At another point, he trails off: "I'll think of his name." And then, with apparent self-awareness: "I should write the names down because I keep forgetting them."
These exchanges took place in 2016 and 2017, years before Biden launched his 2020 presidential campaign and long before questions about his cognitive fitness became a dominant political issue. Hur's own report described Biden's recorded conversations as "painfully slow" and noted he struggled to recall events and relay information.
The public never would have heard these recordings if Biden's legal team had prevailed. Biden sued the Justice Department to block release of the audio and transcripts, with his attorneys arguing that "every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home."
The Heritage Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act request in April 2024 to obtain the recordings after the DOJ declined to press criminal charges. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich denied Biden's attempt to block the release, ruling that the public interest outweighed Biden's privacy claims. The Washington Examiner reported Friedrich's reasoning:
"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."
Biden's team filed for an emergency injunction pending appeal. A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit denied that request in a 2-1 split decision, concluding that "any remaining incursion on personal privacy from disclosure of the now-redacted materials likely does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure." Judge Tanya Chutkan then accepted the voluntary dismissal of Biden's lawsuit, clearing the final obstacle.
The Oversight Project's Mike Howell, who served as plaintiff in the case, did not hold back about what the fight to suppress the tapes revealed. Breitbart News reported his statement upon release:
"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."
Howell added that the tapes "have so many pauses and 'ums' that it sounds like Biden is buffering like a dial-up Internet connection."
The Oversight Project flagged the sheer volume of redacted material in both the audio and the transcript. "At several points in the tapes, Biden references the information he is reviewing is likely classified, which is followed by significant audio redactions for classified information," the organization stated. "This was not just once or twice, these classified redactions cover significant portions of the audio files released."
The group urged listeners not to overlook the gaps: "The listener shouldn't overlook the audio redactions because those redactions are intended to cover the disclosure of classified information." In other words, every silent stretch on the tape marks a moment when Biden was apparently discussing classified material with a private citizen who held no security clearance.
Jeff Clark, vice president for litigation at the Oversight Project, framed the broader significance. Fox News reported his statement:
"We are looking forward to reviewing these tapes that Joe Biden and his administration were allowed to hide for too long. They should show his mental decline as far back as 2016/2017. Yet his Party ran him as President."
That last line captures the central question the tapes raise, not just about classified documents, but about who knew what and when. Biden's own party pushed him through a presidential primary and into the White House. His inner circle, including family members who remain at odds over how the 2024 campaign ended, had access to the man behind these recordings.
Howell went further in his statement to Just The News, calling Hur's investigation "a complete controlled demolition to let Biden off the hook" and demanding that authorities "reopen matters that Biden and his enablers would prefer to remain closed."
For all they reveal, the recordings leave significant questions open. The transcript's heavy redactions obscure exactly what classified information Biden discussed and from which programs or operations it originated. The identity of the person whose memorial service Biden struggled to recall remains redacted. And the specific location Biden meant by "downstairs", whether his Delaware home, his Virginia residence, or another property, is not clarified in the available material.
Nor is it clear who performed the redactions or under what legal authority. The Biden family has offered no public explanation for why the legal fight to suppress the tapes was ultimately abandoned.
What is clear is the timeline. In 2009, by his own account, Biden found classified documents in his home. In 2016, while still vice president, he told a ghostwriter he had materials the White House didn't know about. In 2017, weeks after leaving office, he sat with that same ghostwriter and referenced classified information repeatedly, information now blacked out of the public record. And for years afterward, his legal team fought to make sure no one outside the Justice Department ever heard him say it.
A special counsel found he did it willfully and let him walk anyway. The tapes are the receipts, and the public can finally hear them for itself.
