Former President Joe Biden has won another three weeks to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts tied to special counsel Robert Hur’s classified documents investigation after a federal judge granted a temporary injunction while a federal appeals court reviews his challenge.

The recordings stem from Biden’s interviews with Mark Zwonitzer, the ghostwriter of his 2017 memoir, «Promise Me, Dad.» 

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, on Friday issued an injunction pending appeal that prevents the Justice Department from releasing the materials while the D.C. Circuit considers the case. The order came just hours after Friedrich denied Biden’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have stopped the release altogether.

The legal battle could determine whether Americans ever hear the recordings that helped shape Hur’s decision not to prosecute Biden over his handling of classified documents. The audio has been the subject of intense scrutiny because Hur raised questions about Biden’s memory in explaining why he declined to bring charges against Biden for mishandling classified documents.

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Although the Justice Department previously released audio from Biden’s interviews with Hur, the recordings at the center of the current legal battle involve separate conversations between Biden and Zwonitzer.

Hur’s 2024 report repeatedly referenced Biden’s recorded conversations with Zwonitzer. The special counsel described some exchanges as «painfully slow» and said Biden at times struggled to recall events and relay information, observations that fueled scrutiny of the Biden’s cognitive abilities during an election year.

The Heritage Foundation and its Oversight Project director, Mike Howell, have spent more than two years seeking the recordings and transcripts through FOIA requests.

Heritage Foundation officials have argued the public has a strong interest in reviewing the materials referenced throughout Hur’s report, particularly because the special counsel relied on the recordings in explaining his decision not to pursue criminal charges.

Biden has been fighting to keep the potentially embarrassing recordings under wraps.

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After Friedrich denied Biden’s motion for a preliminary injunction Friday, Biden’s legal team immediately sought emergency relief to preserve the status quo while appealing the decision.

In an emergency filing, Biden’s attorneys argued that disclosure would effectively end the case before appellate judges could review the legal questions involved. They maintained that once the recordings are released, any privacy protections would be permanently lost, and the appeal would become largely moot.

Former special counsel Robert K. Hur testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., March 12, 2024. Hur investigated President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents and published a report with conclusions about Biden’s memory. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The filing also stressed that the FOIA litigation has already been pending for more than two years and argued there was no urgent public need requiring immediate disclosure of conversations that occurred roughly a decade ago between Biden and his ghostwriter. Biden’s attorneys noted that the former president is now a private citizen who neither holds nor is seeking public office.

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The Justice Department initially withheld the recordings and much of the transcript material under several FOIA exemptions. Earlier this year, however, the department reversed course and determined the records could be released with redactions after concluding that significant public interest existed in understanding evidence relied upon by Hur during his investigation.

After the Justice Department announced plans to release the recordings, Biden filed suit in May to stop the disclosure, claiming the audiotapes contain private conversations that should remain protected from public release and, if released, would be in violation of the Privacy Act.

President Joe Biden speaks during an official transition event to thank Ron Klain for his work and to welcome successor Jeff Zients. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

His legal team argued that the department’s decision violates the Privacy Act and constitutes arbitrary agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act.

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Leading Biden’s legal effort is Amy Jeffress, a partner at Washington-based law firm Hecker Fink and a former Justice Department national security official. Jeffress has served as the primary attorney advancing Biden’s challenge to the release of the materials and signed the recent emergency filing seeking to prevent disclosure while the appeal proceeds.

Jeffress has also drawn attention because she is married to U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee who recently ruled against the Trump administration in a high-profile dispute involving the Kennedy Center. Cooper’s ruling prompted criticism from some Trump allies and conservative commentators who pointed to the judge’s family connection to Biden’s attorney, suggesting a conflict of interest may be at play in Cooper’s work.

Desconfianza en las encuestas

Un mural del candidato oficialista Iván Cepeda y su compañera de fórmula Aida Quilcué, en Bogotá. Foto: EFE

Un «referéndum» sobre Gustavo Petro

El presidente de Colombia, Gustavo Petro, termina su mandato en agosto. Foto: AFP

African and Caribbean leaders are demanding financial compensation, debt cancellation and formal apologies from countries that benefited from the transatlantic slave trade after adopting a sweeping reparations plan at a conference in Ghana.

The 19-point framework calls for financial compensation, debt relief, a Global Reparations Fund and the return of looted cultural artifacts and ancestral remains. It also seeks reforms to international financial institutions that supporters say disadvantage Third World countries.

The proposal is expected to be presented at the next UN General Assembly as African and Caribbean nations step up a coordinated push for slavery reparations.

The plan was adopted Friday by the African Union and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Commission on Reparatory Justice at the end of a three-day conference.

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«None of us gathered in this hall today can be held personally responsible for the atrocities of the transatlantic slave trade,» Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama told delegates.

«History does not ask us to inherit guilt, but it asks us to inherit responsibility,» Mahama added.

The proposal does not identify specific countries that should provide compensation or issue formal apologies.

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John Dramani Mahama, president of Ghana, lays a wreath at Christiansborg Castle in Accra during a high-level conference on the United Nations resolution addressing the trafficking of enslaved Africans on Friday. (Ernest Ankomah/Getty Images)

It does call for debt cancellation, climate justice financing, expanded citizenship pathways for Africans in the diaspora and what organizers describe as a «right of return» for descendants of enslaved Africans.

The plan also urges African countries to preserve former slave forts and castles as memorial sites.

According to advocates, at least 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped and transported aboard European ships between the 15th and 19th centuries. Supporters of reparations argue the effects of slavery continue to be felt across Africa and the Caribbean generations later.

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President John Dramani Mahama and Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa host a high-level consultative conference on the next steps following the United Nations resolution on trafficking of enslaved Africans in Accra, Ghana, on Thursday. (Ernest Ankomah/Getty Images)

The conference follows a UN vote in March recognizing transatlantic slavery as the «gravest crime against humanity.»

The resolution passed with 123 votes in favor, but the U.S., Israel and 52 other countries either voted against it or abstained.

According to Reuters, the United States and European Union raised concerns that the resolution could be interpreted as creating a hierarchy among crimes against humanity by treating some atrocities as more serious than others.

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John Dramani Mahama, president of Ghana, Mia Amor Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, and Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Ghana’s foreign affairs minister, attend a wreath-laying event at Christiansborg Castle in Accra, Ghana, Friday, during a high-level conference on the United Nations resolution addressing the trafficking of enslaved Africans. (Ernest Ankomah/Getty Images)

Heads of state from Namibia, Liberia, Senegal, Barbados and Sao Tome and Principe attended the conference, along with senior officials from several other countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the gathering virtually from the Élysée Palace, where he acknowledged the suffering caused by slavery.

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Enslaved people were «torn from their homelands, deported, dehumanised, and treated as goods,» Macron said.

Macron also said reparations should not be viewed «as an end point, or a cheque written to bring the story to a close.»

The conference in Ghana brought together separate reparations efforts previously pursued by African and Caribbean nations into a single document that organizers plan to take before the United Nations.

Reuters contributed to this report.