Washington DC – Former President Joe Biden has sued President Donald Trump's Department of Justice in an attempt to block the release of recordings he described as "private information."

The recordings are from interviews Biden gave to Mark Zwonitzer, the ghostwriter of his 2017 memoir Promise Me, Dad.

The book featured the former president speaking about the 2015 death of his son Beau.

Special Counsel Robert Hur had obtained the recordings and their transcripts while investigating Biden's alleged mishandling of classified documents.

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Hur found that Biden improperly retained documents from his stint as Vice President, but did not recommend pursuing charges.

Biden's run for reelection as president in 2024 was severely damaged by Hur's report, as it portrayed the then-president as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."

Since 2025, however, Trump's DOJ has been pushing to make the interview recordings public.

Biden's lawyers sought to block the release of the information in a lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, which argued that it would constitute an "unwarranted invasion of President Biden's Privacy."

"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 lawsuit argued.

"And when the US Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the Department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure."

In a statement cited by the BBC, Trump's DOJ accused Biden of trying to cover up the truth about his alleged cognitive decline.

"We will fight to ensure the American people can hear these recordings and draw their own conclusions about the former President's mental acuity before he sought the presidency," said DOJ spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre.