DOJ again opposes release of 'properly withheld' Joe Biden audiotapes by warning of 'deepfakes', 'privacy harms'
Source: Law & Crime
Jul 19th, 2024, 9:28 am
The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday told a federal judge that combined efforts by two conservative groups and a coalition of mainstream media organizations to obtain properly withheld audiotapes of President Joe Bidens interview with special counsel Robert Hur through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit should fail for numerous reasons, including that the threat of deepfakes and privacy harms to an uncharged individual are real and that forcing disclosure would create a perverse incentive against executive branch cooperation with Congress.
On the one hand, DOJ disputed that there is any meaningful countervailing public benefit to disclose the recordings given that a transcript of the interview was released and Hur testified before Congress about his report and non-charging recommendation for willful retainment and disclosure of classified materials, but on the other hand DOJ acknowledged that the the audiotapes contain new information not contained in the written transcript, namely the sound, tone, and pacing of Bidens answers (i.e., the non-lexical aspects of the tapes).
DOJ is asking U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Donald Trump appointee, to grant summary judgment against the Heritage Foundation, Judicial Watch, and a media coalition, composed of CNN, ABC, The Associated Press, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, NBC, Reuters, and others, by arguing that Bidens privacy interests outweigh the public interest in releasing the tapes under FOIA. Here are some of the DOJs main arguments.
The audiotapes of the five-hour Biden interview with Hur was properly withheld pursuant to multiple statutory exemptions, in part, because releasing the tapes would interfere with pending law enforcement investigations.
Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/would-create-a-perverse-incentive-doj-again-opposes-release-of-properly-withheld-joe-biden-audiotapes-by-warning-of-deepfakes-privacy-harms-to-uncharged-individual/
Full headline: Would create a perverse incentive: DOJ again opposes release of properly withheld Joe Biden audiotapes by warning of deepfakes, privacy harms to uncharged individual
Link to FILING (PDF) - https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24883858/doj-biden.pdf
Captain Zero
(7,495 posts)when he testified.
The tapes have executive immunity.
Fuck the Supreme Court.
neohippie
(1,167 posts)If the Special Counsel Hur was improperly appointed per Cannon's ruling and Clarence Thomas' unofficial opinion then all the work that Hur did should be destroyed and never released