A newly released audio clip appears to show former President Joe Biden struggling to recall the dates of key events in his life, including the death of his son Beau.
The audio clip, first provided to Axios, is from former special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents after leaving the vice presidency and took place in the days after the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.
In the clips released by Axios, Biden pauses multiple times and appears to struggle as he recounts various details, including the years that he spent as vice president, when President Donald Trump formally took office and when his late son passed away.
US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the passing of former President Jimmy Carter at The Company House in Christiansted, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands on December 29, 2024. Jimmy Carter “lived a life measured not by words, but by his deeds,” President Joe Biden said on December 29 in televised remarks addressing the death of the former US leader. hoto by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Biden sat for more than five hours with Hur, who provided his 345-page report to the Department of Justice, which released it soon after in February 2024. The Biden administration provided the full transcript of Biden’s interview to Congress a month later, which released it.
Axios only published a small snippet of this from the audio they obtained.
“The transcripts were released by the Biden administration more than a year ago. The audio does nothing but confirm what is already public,” Biden’s spokesperson, Kelly Scully, said in a statement to ABC News.
The Biden administration resisted releasing the audio recording itself, by Biden invoking executive privilege. Former Attorney General Merrick Garland was held in contempt of Congress by House Republicans for his refusal to release the audio.
As ABC News previously reported, the Trump administration was poised to release the full audio, rejecting arguments posed by Biden administration officials that disclosing such evidence from a closed criminal investigation could prevent future high-profile subjects from providing similar cooperation to investigators.
The release comes on the heels of books that have disclosed reporting on how Biden and his inner circle allegedly sought to shield aspects of his diminishing mental capacities during his presidency.
ABC News has not independently obtained the audio. A White House spokesperson solely referred ABC to the Axios clips. It is not immediately clear how Axios obtained the audio from a closed criminal investigation.
The Trump administration has separately resisted efforts by oversight groups and media organizations to release former special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s handling of classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021, which resulted in Trump being charged with 40 criminal counts relating to his allegede mishandling of national defense information and obstruction.
