2026年7月10日 / 美国东部时间12:33 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
华盛顿讯 —— 美国联邦上诉法院暂时阻止司法部向一家保守派智库移交前总统乔·拜登大约十年前与其传记作者的对话删节版文字 transcript 和录音。
美国哥伦比亚特区巡回上诉法院的三名法官组成的合议庭同意发布一项行政禁令，暂停向传统基金会（Heritage Foundation）披露相关材料，禁令有效期为10天。
法院在一份简短的未署名裁决中表示，这项将于7月20日晚上11:59到期的禁令，目的是“给予法院充足时间审议上诉期间的紧急禁令动议，绝不应被解读为对该动议实质内容的裁决”。
这场法律争议涉及的录音录制于2016年和2017年，当时拜登为撰写回忆录《答应我，爸爸》（Promise Me, Dad），与其传记作者马克·兹沃尼策进行了多次对话。但在特别检察官罗伯特·赫尔对拜登2017年卸任副总统后处理敏感政府文件的行为展开调查数年后，这些录音引起了传统基金会的关注。赫尔的调查并未指控这位前总统犯下任何罪行。
赫尔2024年发布的特别检察官报告中，包含了提及拜登与兹沃尼策对话的段落。特别检察官在报告中写道，录音显示这位前总统“官能衰退、记忆混乱”，并称拜登与兹沃尼策的对话“极其缓慢，拜登先生费力回忆事件，有时甚至费劲阅读和转述自己笔记本上的内容”。
赫尔的报告发布后不久，传统基金会根据《信息自由法》提出公开记录申请，要求获取赫尔撰写报告特定部分所依据的材料，包括提及与兹沃尼策的录音对话的节选内容。
司法部最初以《信息自由法》的相关豁免条款为由，拒绝提供录音带和大部分书面文字 transcript。但在特朗普总统重返白宫后，司法部表示打算向国会和传统基金会提供相关材料。
拜登介入了传统基金会2024年提起的诉讼，该诉讼旨在迫使司法部披露文字 transcript 和录音。但上个月，一名联邦法官最初驳回了这位前总统阻止披露的请求。
在发布该裁决后不久，法官达布尼·弗里德里希同意暂停特朗普政府披露相关信息三周，以便哥伦比亚特区巡回法院有时间决定是否自行采取行动。该暂停令原定于周五下午5点到期。
拜登的律师团队向哥伦比亚特区巡回法院辩称，公开他与兹沃尼策的对话会造成损害，并将披露这些对话比作公开日记或私人短信。
“相关私人对话从未打算与更广泛的受众分享，司法部之所以持有这些录音，只是因为它在一项未提出任何指控的刑事调查中收集了这些材料，”他们在一份提交的文件中辩称。
拜登的法律团队还表示，传统基金会并无迫切需要获取这些材料。
“这场《信息自由法》诉讼已经拖延了近两年半，对于一位现已退休、既未担任公职也未谋求公职的前总统来说，披露其十年前的对话，并无任何有意义的公共利益——更不用说必须在短短几天或几周内满足的利益了，”他们说道。
但司法部表示，公众有权了解赫尔在调查过程中所依据的信息。
“披露这些材料将让公众能够评估赫尔所作结论的说服力，”司法部律师在提交给哥伦比亚特区巡回法院的法庭文件中表示。
Appeals court temporarily blocks Justice Department’s release of Biden conversations with biographer
July 10, 2026 / 12:33 PM EDT / CBS News
Washington — A federal appeals court temporarily blocked the Justice Department from turning over to a conservative think tank redacted transcripts and audio recordings of conversations former President Joe Biden had with his biographer roughly a decade ago.
A panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed to issue an administrative injunction that stops the release of the material to the Heritage Foundation for 10 days.
The court said in a brief unsigned order that the purpose of its injunction, which expires at 11:59 p.m. on July 20, is to “give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the emergency motion for an injunction pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion.”
The recordings at issue in the legal fight date back to 2016 and 2017, when Biden sat down with his biographer, Mark Zwonitzer, for his memoir, “Promise Me, Dad.” But they gained interest from the Heritage Foundation several years later following an investigation by former special counsel Robert Hur into Biden’s handling of sensitive government records after his vice presidency, which ended in 2017. The former president was not charged with any crimes stemming from Hur’s investigation.
The special counsel’s report, released in 2024, included passages that referenced Biden’s conversations with Zwonitzer. The special counsel wrote the recordings showed the former president’s “diminished faculties and faulty memory,” and said his conversations with Zwonitzer were “painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries.”
Soon after Hur’s report was released, the Heritage Foundation filed a public records request for material the special counsel relied on to write specific portions of the report, including the excerpts that referred to Zwonitzer’s recorded conversations with Biden.
The Justice Department initially withheld the audio tapes and most of the written transcripts, citing certain exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act. But once President Trump returned to the White House, the department said it intended to provide the material to Congress and the Heritage Foundation.
Biden moved to intervene in a lawsuit the Heritage Foundation had filed in 2024 to force the release of the transcripts and tapes. But last month, a federal judge initially rejected a request from the former president to block the disclosure.
Shortly after she issued her decision, the judge, Dabney Friedrich, agreed to stop the Trump administration from releasing the information for three weeks to give the D.C. Circuit time to decide whether to take action itself. That order was set to expire at 5 p.m. Friday.
Biden’s lawyers had argued to the D.C. Circuit that disseminating his discussions with Zwonitzer would be harmful and likened their disclosure to the public release of diary entries or private text messages.
“The private conversations at issue were never intended to be shared with a wider audience, and the Department has them only because it collected the recordings as part of a criminal investigation that resulted in no charges,” they argued in a filing.
Biden’s legal team also said there is no immediate need for the Heritage Foundation to access the material.
“This FOIA action has been pending for nearly two and a half years, and there is no meaningful public interest — let alone one that must be satisfied in the immediate days or weeks — in the disclosure of decade-old conversations of a former President who is now a private citizen, and who neither holds nor is seeking public office,” they said.
But the Justice Department said the public has an interest in seeing the information that Hur relied on during the course of his investigation.
“Releasing the materials will allow the public to assess the persuasiveness of Hur’s determinations,” department lawyers told the D.C. Circuit in court papers.
发表回复