WASHINGTON (CN) — A federal judge grilled attorneys from the Justice Department and the Heritage Foundation on Thursday in a legal battle to release redacted portions of the questioning of an author who helped President Joe Biden write his memoirs.
The contentious hearing centered on dual motions for summary judgment by the parties to either fully release transcripts from special counsel Robert Hur’s interview of ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer or to keep certain portions redacted.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Joe Biden appointee, declined to rule on either motion Thursday, but expressed confusion as to why the transcripts were even an issue considering how much had changed since the foundation filed suit on April 3.
Originally, the Heritage Foundation argued that it important to release the transcripts to provide transparency as to why Hur declined to criminally charge Biden for disclosing classified material to Zwonitzer during the ghostwriting process.
According to Hur’s final report released in February, Biden used notes he had taken during his time as vice president during the writing of “Promise Me, Dad,” during interviews with Zwonitzer, some one which contained classified information “up to the Top Secret level.”
“You are aware that Biden’s no longer running for reelection?” Reyes asked Heritage attorney Samuel Dewey, noting that the new Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, has no connection to the Hur report.
The exchange was indicative of how starkly different the race for president is from just two months ago, when Biden decided to step down as the nominee. With that decision and Harris’ ascension, former President Donald Trump and his conservative allies have had to scrap their prior lines of attack to fend off the much younger candidate.
Litigation, however, is a lengthy process, a fact Reyes highlighted by pointing out that Biden barely has four months left in office before either a Harris or second Trump administration begins.
Even with 46 days until the election, Reyes was skeptical releasing the portions of the transcript with Zwonitzer that had been left redacted would truly be in the public’s interest. She briefly read a portion of the transcript, emphasizing the banal nature of the conversation.
“What undecided voters out there all really care about these tapes?” Reyes asked Dewey. “I would bet everything I own and my dog, Scout, that anyone’s vote will actually be swayed by this transcript.”
Dewey maintained that there is a public interest in the releasing the full transcripts so that people can “check [Hur’s] homework” and make their own judgment about whether Biden should have been charged in the classified documents investigation.
He drew a comparison to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential ties between n the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election, arguing that there was still interest in that case after Trump left office in 2021.
Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Shapiro, who had brought unreacted copies of both the transcript and the five-hour recording per a court order, urged Reyes to deny Dewey’s request. She argued the redacted portions included private information about Zwonitzer’s personal background, reflections on his career and his personal relationship with Biden.
She emphasized that, besides Zwonitzer’s background information, those assertions were her personal recollections on the redactions, and may not include their full extent.
Reyes asked Shapiro’s colleague Robert Meyer whether the fact that much of Zwonitzer’s interview had already been made public in Hur’s February report and reporting on his findings should influence her decision on the remaining redactions.
Meyer returned that Supreme Court precedent in Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which held that certain information can still be restricted when it could constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy, even when much of the information is already public record.
Outside of the Heritage Foundation’s lawsuit, Zwonitzer has also drawn the ire of House Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, who subpoenaed the author in March after he failed to turn over documents from his interviews with Biden.
In June, the Committee moved to hold Zwonitzer in contempt of Congress for defying that subpoena.
At the conclusion of Thursday’s hearing, Reyes said she would review the unredacted transcript in her chambers and scheduled an Oct. 29 hearing to discuss her findings.
Before adjourning, she asked Dewey whether he and his clients would withdraw the suit if she ultimately found that the redactions only included Zwonitzer’s background information or already public information about Biden, to which he conceded that they would.