Listen: Biden admits keeping classified documents at home

Lily ShanagherTue, July 28, 2026 at 9:37 AM UTC

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Joe Biden admitted being confused in recordings with his biographer - Jeff Roberson

Joe Biden openly discussed keeping classified government documents at his house, private recordings with his biographer have revealed.

In audio released by the right-wing Oversight Project, the former president is heard sharing the material with Mark Lewis Zwontizer. The pair were working on Mr Biden’s 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad.

“I just found all the classified stuff downstairs,” Mr Biden, now 83, is heard saying at one point in the audio, recorded in February 2017, a month after he left the White House.

In an earlier interview, while still serving as Barack Obama’s vice-president, he said: “The next thing I have here is…classified…they didn’t even know I had this,” referring to the White House.

Credit: Oversight Project

In the conversations for his $8m book deal, he appeared at times forgetful and admitted being confused.

In one part of an interview Mr Biden says: “Alright – what was I going to ask you? Something else… Uh… um. Oh gosh. I can’t think of anything else.”

In another moment, Mr Biden asks his ghostwriter to “Hang on a second”, while he apparently studies his notes. “Um … it’s confusing me,” the former president later says.

The recordings were made while Joe Biden was using a ghostwriter for a book chronicling his time as vice-president while his son Beau battled brain cancer - Pan Macmillan

Mr Biden had fought to keep the tapes private, suing the justice department in May, but dropped the lawsuit after an appeals court ruled they should be made public.

TJ Ducklo, Mr Biden’s spokesman, said in a statement that releasing the tapes was “just the latest example of this administration weaponising the DOJ (department of justice) for political retribution”.

Republicans have pointed out that it was under Mr Biden’s administration that Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was raided and searched for classified documents.

Documents allegedly seized at Mar-a-Lago during a raid on his Florida home - AFP

Mr Trump was charged with illegally retaining documents, but the charges were dropped when he became president again.

Mr Biden’s interviews also revealed heated disagreements between himself and Mr Obama over the response to the 2008 financial crisis, as well as deploying troops to Afghanistan.

House Republicans and the Oversight Project – a branch of the powerful conservative think tank Heritage Foundation – sued for the tapes, which were handed over for a 2024 justice department investigation into Mr Biden.

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The DOJ kept the files classified during Mr Biden’s stint as president from 2021 to 2025, but released the heavily redacted files after Mr Trump returned to the White House following years of unsuccessful lawsuits by Mr Biden’s legal team to keep them private.

In 2024, Robert Hur, the special counsel, looked at the tapes while investigating Mr Biden’s handling of classified material.

Former first lady Dr Jill Biden, pictured making a toast with Joe Biden in 2024, has said she was concerned about her husband’s health - Alex Wong

He found Mr Biden had trouble with his memory, with the conversations at times “painfully slow, with Mr Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries”.

Because of Mr Biden’s elderly disposition, poor memory and cooperation, Mr Hur decided not to bring a case against him.

In the tapes, Mr Biden tells the ghostwriter about meetings he had with Mr Obama and top advisers over his decision to run for president.

Strategists discussed Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton as being divisive and Bernie Sanders as too angry, Mr Biden claimed.

The team also discussed Mr Biden’s “gaffe issue” as “like a virus”.

He also discusses his opposition to Mr Obama’s choice to send troops into Afghanistan.

“So this was…I, early on, in ’09… I just found all of the classified stuff downstairs. I wrote the president a handwritten 40-page memorandum arguing against deploying additional troops to Iraq – I mean, to Afghanistan on the grounds that it wouldn’t matter, that the day we left would be like the day before we arrived,” Mr Biden said.

He also spoke of Mr Obama getting “really p—ed at me” over his stances on improving the economy after the 2008 housing crisis, claiming he was backing housing and the middle class.

“I was a really lonely voice on housing, I was a lonely voice on the middle class. I mean, I thought we should be much more aggressive than putting these guys in jail and the bankers.

“I mean, [Mr Obama] used to really get p—ed at me.

“I think the reason why we didn’t do more, by the way, is because I think that – this is a harsh thing to say – but I think subconsciously, at least, Barack and his guys were beholden to Silicon Valley.

“And the valley guys didn’t want the s— that I – you know, I wanted.”

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Source: “AOL Breaking”