Explosive audio: Biden admits to keeping classified material

Former President Joe Biden’s attorneys fought to keep the tapes private before a court ordered their release.

By World Israel News Staff

Newly released audio recordings of former President Joe Biden speaking with his ghostwriter have reignited scrutiny over his handling of classified documents, as the tapes prove that he was aware he possessed sensitive government material at his home.

The recordings were made in February 2017, shortly after Biden left office as vice president at the end of the Obama administration. At the time, Biden was working with a ghostwriter on his memoir, Promise Me, Dad.

Biden’s attorneys fought to keep the recordings from becoming public, arguing that they were part of a confidential investigative process. However, after a lengthy legal battle, the tapes were released this week, albeit with substantial redactions. Republicans have criticized the extent of those redactions, claiming they obscure important details about Biden’s handling of classified material.

In one of the recordings, Biden can be heard discussing documents stored in his home.

“I just found all the classified stuff downstairs,” he told the ghostwriter, referring to materials located in the basement of his residence.

In another exchange, Biden explicitly acknowledged that one of the documents he was showing the ghostwriter was secret.

“The next thing I have here is, um, this is classified,” he said on the recording.

Particularly significant is a separate tape from October 2016, when Biden was still serving as vice president. In that recording, he discussed notes he had retained from his years in office, which were also likely classified.

“I have extensive notes over this period of time… They [the White House] didn’t know I have this.”

In 2024, special counsel Robert Hur declined to bring charges against Biden. Hur concluded that prosecutors would have difficulty proving criminal intent and wrote that Biden would likely be viewed by a jury as a sympathetic elderly man with a poor memory.

The decision not to prosecute Biden drew sharp criticism from Republicans, who contrasted it with the Justice Department’s handling of former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case.

Federal agents executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida in 2022 as part of an investigation into classified documents retained after he left office. Trump was later charged, though the case was ultimately dismissed after he returned to office in 2025.