Oversight Project vows to get, release recordings of Biden’s interview with ghostwriter

The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project on Tuesday vowed to obtain and release the audio recording of President Joe Biden’s interview with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer. The ghostwriter in June admitted to deleting audio of the interview.

"We see Biden when he's sleeping. We see when he's awake. We know if he's been bad or good. So release the tapes for goodness sake," Heritage Oversight Project Executive Director Mike Howell wrote. The Oversight Project replied, "Our team will get the audio tape of Joe Biden’s interview to you. This recording is yours. It belongs to you. You deserve to know."

Howell included in his post a screengrab of a court filing from December 23, which stated that the "release of the audio recordings would not result in an unwarranted invasion of privacy."

"President Biden & Zwonitzer have little, if any, privacy interest here," the court document stated, adding that "there is overwhelming public interest in disclosure of the audio recordings."

In June it was revealed that during an interview with the FBI the year prior, Zwonitzer "wouldn't say" how much of his decision to delete the recordings was motivated by the fact that an investigation by special counsel Robert Hur had been launched, but noted that getting rid of audio files after using them was "something I do as a rule anyways." The Oversight Project released the transcript of the interview.

"The outside observer is going to look at this and say”, Mark Zwonitzer, President Biden's friend, ghostwriter, collaborator learned of the special counsel's investigation, saw this was happening and then deleted all these audio recordings," the agent said. "I just need the truth on this one ... That was part of your motivation, at least something you were aware of when you did this?"

"I'm not going to say how much of the percentage it was of my motivation," Zwonitzer replied, adding, "I was aware that there was an investigation." He went on to say he was "very concerned" about being hacked by those who would then spread the audio on the internet, but said that was mainly because there was "a lot of personal stuff and emotional stuff about Beau," Biden's late son.

He said out of an abundance of caution, he "took the audio files subfolder from both the G drive and [his] laptop, and slid them into the trash."