President Joe Biden’s administration is fighting against the release of the tapes.
Audio recordings of President Joe Biden’s interview with a special counsel differ from the transcripts of the interview, but the differences are inconsequential, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a new court filing.
“The interview transcripts are accurate transcriptions of the words of the interview contained in the audio recording, except for minor instances such as the use of filler words (such as ‘um’ or ‘uh’) when speaking that are not always reflected on the transcripts, or when words may have been repeated when spoken (such as ‘I, I’ or ‘and, and’) but sometimes was only listed a single time in the transcripts,” Bradley Weinsheimer, a DOJ official, said in the document obtained by The Epoch Times.
“Besides these exceedingly minor differences, based on my simultaneous review of the transcripts while listening to the audio recording, the transcripts accurately capture the words spoken during the interview on the audio recording with no material differences between the audio recording and transcripts,” Mr. Weinsheimer added.
The declaration was made in support of the DOJ’s request to throw out a court case brought against the government over its refusal to release the recordings of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
Several groups, including Judicial Watch, and media outlets sued the government over the refusal and saw their cases consolidated. The matter is being considered in federal court in Washington.
The Biden administration has been forced “to admit what everyone suspected—that the transcript is not accurate and was changed in a way to help Biden,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “There is nothing ordinary about this, and the transcript inaccuracy issues seem to help Biden’s political campaign needs.”
Officials pointed to how they have released transcripts of the interview, which took place across two days in October 2023, and how Mr. Hur described his investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents in a 345-page report.
“As a result, any marginal increase in the public’s understanding of how special counsel Hur carried out his investigation (the only public interest cognizable here) is insufficient to overcome the significant privacy interests at stake,” Brian Boynton, a DOJ deputy assistant attorney general, and two other DOJ officials said in another filing in support of a motion for summary judgment.
They added later that the transcripts are “verbatim.”Government officials, in addition to reiterating concerns that releasing the recordings could make uncharged individuals less likely to speak to law enforcement in the future, also said that the recordings could be altered if made public.
“If the recording of President Biden’s interview were released, there is a substantial risk that malicious actors could alter the recording to (for example) insert words that President Biden did not say or delete words that he did say,” Mr. Weinsheimer said.
That issue “has been substantially exacerbated in recent years given that there is now widely available technology that can be used to create entirely different audio ‘deepfakes’ based on a recording,” he said.
While plenty of audio and video recordings of President Biden already exist on the internet, the release of these audio recordings “would make it far more likely that malicious actors could pass off a deepfake as the authentic recording,” he alleged later.
If the recordings are kept stored away, then the DOJ would be better able to figure out whether circulating audio is a deepfake, officials said.
The groups that brought the suit have not yet formally responded to the filings.
Lawmakers are also pursuing the recordings, stating previously that the files are “materially different from transcripts, offering a unique and invaluable medium of information that capture vocal tone, pace, inflections, verbal nuance, and other idiosyncrasies.” They say the recordings are needed as they investigate President Biden for possible misconduct related to his family’s business dealings while he was vice president.
Attorney General Merrick Garland and the DOJ also spurned that request, resulting in an effort to hold Mr. Garland, an appointee of the president, in contempt.
Two U.S. House of Representatives panels in May advanced the effort, but the full House has not yet voted on the measure.