‘This is Classified’: What Biden Told His Ghostwriter, and What Redactions Tell About Materials He Shared

Long before he ran for president, Joe Biden made several references to both classified and potentially classified material in his interviews with a ghostwriter.

The tapes of the interviews were released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request from the Oversight Project, a watchdog group formerly part of The Heritage Foundation. Biden intervened in a lawsuit to stop the release of the tapes, but after the D.C. Circuit Court ruled in favor of the release, he dropped the challenge. The interviews took place on several occasions between October 2016, while he was still serving as vice president, and April 2017, after he left office.

“And, then the next thing I have here is — this is classified,” Biden told the ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, on Nov. 3, 2016, referring to materials.

According to a transcript of the tapes, Zwonitzer replied, “Well, I think we have that pretty well covered in that — from the earlier — from the notebooks you had the last few times.”

Biden replied, “I spent a lot of time this month on Ukraine and Brazil.” They continued talking about foreign policy, according to the interview transcript.

In numerous instances, the category of redactions noted in the transcripts was (b)(1), which is secret or confidential, and often stamped as such; or (b)(3), which is when a document is secret under congressional guidelines, even if it isn’t stamped. These categories of classification in the redacted materials indicate the Justice Department had the Department of War and the CIA review them before a release, Marshall Yates, strategic counsel for the Oversight Project, told the Daily Signal.

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“Joe Biden shared classified information with a ghost writer lacking a security clearance and he illegally retained those documents in the first place. Period,” Jeffrey Clark, vice president of litigation at the Oversight Project, said in a post on X.

On Feb. 16, 2017, shortly after leaving the vice president’s office, Biden discussed with Zwonitzer his first year as vice president.

Following lengthy redactions, he was recorded saying, “Early on, in ’09 — I just found all 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,” Biden told the writer.

In an April 10, 2017, interview, Biden told the ghostwriter, “John at the CIA said,” and the sentence came with redactions in front of it and after it. The writer confirmed it was John Brennan, the CIA director during the Obama administration.

Also on April 10, 2017, Biden discussed a briefing with the CIA and the Defense Department, in a portion of the transcript sandwiched between two lengthy redactions.

“I have 2:30 p.m. meeting with General [Lloyd] Austin. This was a big meeting with the CIA and everyone on — it was…”

The writer asked, “Was that a July meeting?”

“I don’t know. It looks like it is. It says — I changed pens so it’s gotta be after the 17th of June,” Biden said. “And then it’s a long meeting where DoD brief Two at 2:30 p.m.”

During the April 24, 2017, talk, Biden cautioned Zwonitzer, “Some of this may be classified, so be careful with it. I’m not sure. It’s not marked classified, but –.”

The Daily Signal reached out to the Office of Joe and Jill Biden for comment for this story, as well as to Creative Artists Agency, which represents Biden for public speaking.

A Biden spokesman told the Associated Press the release of the recordings was the result of a weaponized Department of Justice.

“President Biden’s conversations for a book a decade ago that discussed his late son are private, and were provided to the Department of Justice on the express condition they stay that way,” Biden spokesman TJ Ducklo. “Reversing course and making them public is just the latest example of this Administration weaponizing the DOJ for political retribution.”