'I just found all the classified stuff downstairs' - Biden to ghostwriter

House Republicans and the Oversight Project have released audio recordings from February 2017 in which then‑Vice President Joe Biden discusses possessing classified material while working on his 2017 memoir *Promise Me, Dad* with ghostwriter Mark Wonitzer. The tapes, which were handed over for a 2024 justice section probe into Biden’s handling of records, contain the exchange: “I conscionable recovered each the classified worldly downstairs,” Biden is heard saying astatine 1 constituent successful the audio, recorded successful February 2017, a period aft helium near the White House. At another point in the more than 2 hours of tapes released on Monday, Biden tells Zwonitzer: “The adjacent happening I person present is, um, this is classified.” In an October 2016 recording he states: “I person extended notes implicit this play of time… They [the White House] didn't cognize I person this.” At the time Biden was still serving as vice‑president to Barack Obama. During Biden’s presidency from 2021‑25 the justice section declined to release the audio tapes. In May his personal lawyers sued the justice section to keep the tapes private, but after legal defeats they dropped the lawsuit. House Oversight Committee Republicans say the recordings contain important redactions “intended to screen [Biden's] disclosure of classified information.” In 2024 Special Counsel Robert Hur obtained the recordings and transcripts while investigating Biden’s handling of classified documents. Hur found Biden improperly retained records but did not urge charges, citing concerns that a jury would sympathize and view him as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, aged antheral with a mediocre memory.” Donald Trump was charged with illegally retaining documents at his Florida residence, but the charges were dropped after he returned to the White House. TJ Ducklo, Biden’s spokesman, said releasing the tapes was “just the latest illustration of this Administration weaponizing the DOJ for governmental retribution.” He added, “It's wrong, and portion President Biden disagrees with today's decision, helium besides respects the courts and the captious relation an autarkic judiciary plays successful a steadfast democracy.”