DOJ's bizarre reason for not releasing audio of Biden's Hur interview

Releasing the audio recording of Joe Biden's bumbling interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur (pictured right) would make phony versions more believable, the Justice Department has claimed. The White House is fighting a rearguard action to keep the tape secret after the president was described as an 'elderly man with a poor memory' by Hur during his investigation into the mishandling of classified documents. 

A transcript revealed that the president forgot the year his son Beau died, when Trump was elected, and said 'I don't recall', 'I don't remember' and 'I have no goddamn idea' more than 100 times while cracking jokes and making car noises. The DoJ has admitted that there is more than enough existing audio of the two men to create an AI version of the interview but has argued releasing the genuine article would make it more likely.

'If the audio recording is released, it is easy to foresee that it could be improperly altered, and that the altered file could be passed off as an authentic recording and widely distributed,' Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer wrote in a court filing on Friday. 'The passage of time and advancements in audio, artificial intelligence, and 'deep fake' technologies only amplify concerns about malicious manipulation of audio files.'

Hur was appointed to investigate 'possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents' in January last year after classified documents from Biden's vice-presidency were found at the Penn Biden think tank in DC and in the garage of Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware. 'We identified evidence that the President willfully retained classified materials after the end of his vice presidency, when he was a private citizen,' Hur concluded. 

But he stopped short of filing charges, believing a jury would not convict the president. 'At trial, Mr Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,' he explained. 'I knew that for my position to be credible. I could not simply announce that there would be no charges, I needed to explain why. I needed to show my work.'

The House Oversight and Judiciary committees have voted to hold Attorney General Mercik Garland in contempt for his refusal to abide by subpoenas for the audio of Biden's five-hour interview with Hur. Biden was outraged at Hur's testimony and the release of the transcript, subsequently compounding his embarrassment with the disprovable claim that Hur had brought up the subject of Beau's death when in fact it was the president himself.

The president has claimed executive privilege in his attempt to keep the tape under wraps and the DoJ warned about the dangers of AI manipulation in a response to a legal challenge to that. Weinsheimer claimed that its release would 'make it far more likely that malicious actors could pass off a deepfake as the authentic recording'.

Republicans have speculated that the published transcript may have been edited to cover up even more gaffes and have pledged to maintain the pressure for the audio version. 'President Biden is apparently afraid for the citizens of this country and everyone to hear those tapes,' House Speaker Mike Johnson said last month.

He added: 'They obviously confirm what the special counsel has found, and would likely cause, I suppose, in his estimation, such alarm with the American people that the president is using all of his power to suppress their release.'

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