President Joe Biden’s administration is fighting against the release of the tapes.
Audio recordings of President Joe Biden’s interview with a special counsel differ from the transcripts of the interview, but the differences are inconsequential, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a new court filing.
“The interview transcripts are accurate transcriptions of the words of the interview contained in the audio recording, except for minor instances such as the use of filler words (such as ‘um’ or ‘uh’) when speaking that are not always reflected on the transcripts, or when words may have been repeated when spoken (such as ‘I, I’ or ‘and, and’) but sometimes was only listed a single time in the transcripts,” Bradley Weinsheimer, a DOJ official, said in the document obtained by The Epoch Times.
“Besides these exceedingly minor differences, based on my simultaneous review of the transcripts while listening to the audio recording, the transcripts accurately capture the words spoken during the interview on the audio recording with no material differences between the audio recording and transcripts,” Mr. Weinsheimer added.
The declaration was made in support of the DOJ’s request to throw out a court case brought against the government over its refusal to release the recordings of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
Several groups, including Judicial Watch, and media outlets sued the government over the refusal and saw their cases consolidated. The matter is being considered in federal court in Washington.
The Biden administration has been forced “to admit what everyone suspected—that the transcript is not accurate and was changed in a way to help Biden,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “There is nothing ordinary about this, and the transcript inaccuracy issues seem to help Biden’s political campaign needs.”
Officials pointed to how they have released transcripts of the interview, which took place across two days in October 2023, and how Mr. Hur described his investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents in a 345-page report.
