White House admits to editing Biden interview transcripts in classified docs case

The White House confirmed the edits in court documents, according to a statement by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project on Friday. Justice Department special counsel Robert Hur interviewed President Joe Biden on October 8th and 9th of last year about his alleged mishandling of classified documents after his vice presidential term. Later, transcripts of Hur’s interviews with Biden became public.

House Republicans and others have demanded that the White House publish the audio recordings of the interviews. The White House has refused. The White House and the Justice Department have argued that the recordings are protected by executive privilege.

The Heritage Foundation has sued the Biden administration to release the audio recordings and last month filed a motion to speed up the timeline for doing so. On Friday, the Justice Department filed a motion, first reported by Politico, in which it alleged recent advances in so-called deep fake technology could lead to the audio being manipulated and misconstrued if it is released. Additionally, the Justice Department said that releasing the audio would constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy and interfere with law enforcement investigations.

What sorts of edits were made to the transcripts, allegedly? The White House said in a segment of a document published by the Oversight Project that verbal stumbles were edited out of the transcripts and the use of filler words, such as “um” or “uh,” but that no material facts were changed. The Oversight Project alleges that the edits were made to make Biden appear more competent and well-spoken.

Special counsel Hur, in his report on his investigation, said that Biden had shown a lack of mental clarity during the interviews and struggled to remember when his term as vice president had begun and when it had ended. He also failed to remember, even within a few years, when his son Beau had died. He also mistook details about whom he had agreed with and disagreed with during debates about the American invasion of Afghanistan. Furthermore, Hur described recordings of interviews Biden had with his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, which occurred several years before the investigation, as often painfully slow. During those recordings, Biden struggled to remember dates and times and struggled to read his own handwriting, Hur said.

Dig deeper: Read R. Albert Mohler Jr.’s column in WORLD Opinions about Biden’s age and mental wellness in light of this year’s presidential election.