Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has formally asked Mark Zwonitzer to provide all audio recordings and transcripts he has of conversations with President Biden.
The House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 14 demanded that the ghostwriter of President Joe Biden’s memoir hand over any recordings and notes from his conversations during their collaboration.
In a letter sent via email, Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) formally asked Mark Zwonitzer to provide the committee with any remaining audio recordings and transcripts he has of conversations with President Biden.
Mr. Zwonitzer, the ghostwriter who helped President Biden write “Promise Me, Dad” and “Promises to Keep,” deleted some recordings and materials from his computer once he learned of the probe but was ultimately not charged.
The request comes in the wake of the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s 388-page report into President Biden’s alleged unlawful removal, willful retention, and disclosure of classified documents.
The materials include “notebooks containing Mr. Biden’s handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.” These were used to help Mr. Zwonitzer put together the memoir.
President Biden condemned statements in the report about his poor memory and mental faculties, while also denying parts related to sharing classified information with his ghostwriter.
“I’ve seen the headlines since the report was released about my willful retention of documents. These assertions are not only misleading, they’re just plain wrong,” President Biden said at a press briefing following the release of the report.
“I did not share classified information. I did not share it,” the president said at the time, regarding his collaboration with Mr. Zwonitzer.
Biden Read Notes From Classified Meetings: Report
Mr. Jordan questioned the accuracy of the president’s denial in his letter to Mr. Zwonitzer, citing the special counsel’s report.
The special counsel “unequivocally” found that during “many of the interviews with his ghostwriter,” the president “read from his notebooks nearly verbatim, sometimes for an hour or more at a time,” Mr. Jordan wrote.
The special counsel said that President Biden shared passages dealing with classified information with Mr. Zwonitzer on three occasions. The notebooks were kept during his time in office as vice president.
