Trump Reacts As Biden Sues DOJ Over Audio That Fueled Memory Concerns

President Donald Trump reacted to the news that Joe Biden is fighting the release of the recordings from the investigation that led to the end of his political career.

Trump didn't mince his words when he wrote “A Crooked Politician!!!” on Truth Social on Tuesday. The president also shared a Just the News article about the lawsuit Biden had filed against the Department of Justice.

Of course, this is not the first time that the Trump has targeted Biden, and he often refers to his predecessor as "Sleepy Joe."

Former President Joe Biden filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department as he tries to block the release of the audio recordings from Robert Hur’s classified investigation. These audios eventually damaged Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign.

According to The Guardian, the lawsuit was filed on Tuesday and argues that the recordings contain “private conversations” that shouldn't be released to the public. But, the lawsuit is also reopening old wounds about Biden's memory during his last year as president.

In 2016 and 2017, Mark Zwonitzer interviewed Biden for his memoir Promise Me, Dad. Those interviews were audio recordings and later became pivotal when Hur later reviewed them while investigating how Biden handled classified documents after leaving the vice presidency.

Although Hur decided not to press criminal charges against Biden, his report had a disastrous effect on Biden's political career after he described Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

When the news came out, that phrase ultimately damaged his 2024 presidential campaign.

In his report. Hur found that Biden had “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.” This included documents linked to Afghanistan's military policy.

However, the special counsel said that they would not criminally prosecute him.

At the time, the nation sat up and took note of how many times the report mentioned Biden’s memory and recall struggles during interviews.

Hur wrote that Biden’s memory appeared to have “significant limitations” and said that some parts of the interviews as “painfully slow.”

Hur's assessment cost Biden as the recordings were weighed by the public as he campaigned to be re-elected again.

Biden strongly pushed back against those characterizations at the time.

“My memory is fine,” Biden told reporters in February 2024. “I was in the middle of handling an international crisis.”

His legal team is now arguing that the Justice Department is violating Biden's privacy as they want to release the recordings to House Republicans and the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“Every American, including a sitting or former vice-president, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” Biden’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

“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.”

Previously, the DOJ did not want to release the recordings during Biden’s presidency.

Under President Donald Trump’s administration, however, the department has changed course and reportedly plans to release the material by June 15.

Justice Department spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said, “Joe Biden’s Justice Department tried to hide audio recordings that clearly demonstrate a significant decline in his cognitive abilities as far back as 2016."

“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.”

After his disastrous 2024 debate performance, Democrats were increasingly concerned about Biden's age and fitness for office.

Biden later withdrew from the race and endorsed then-Vice President Kamala Harris, who then lost the general election to Trump.