A Court Crushed Joe Biden’s Bid to Hide Tapes That Show Why Robert Hur Called Him a Confused Old Man

July 24, 2026 Cat2, Politics
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Joe Biden spent four years telling America he was sharp, focused, and fully in command.

Now a federal appeals court just ruled the tapes proving otherwise are going public.

Biden's lawyers lost their emergency bid Monday – and he has until August 3 to run to the Supreme Court before the recordings drop.

What Biden Is Desperately Trying to Bury

The tapes in question come from 2016 and 2017 – conversations Biden had with his memoir ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, while working on Promise Me, Dad.

Robert Hur's team obtained those recordings during the classified documents investigation.

What they found was damning enough to put in the official report.

Hur wrote that the conversations were "painfully slow," with Biden "struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries."

“We have also considered that, 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,” the special counsel said in his report. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt,” the report continued. “It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

That's the official finding of a special counsel – not a Republican attack ad.

The Heritage Foundation sued under FOIA two years ago to get the full recordings and transcripts.

Biden has fought them at every step.

A Trump-appointed district judge ruled in June that the public interest outweighs whatever privacy claim Biden has.

The D.C. Circuit agreed Monday in a 2-1 ruling.

The majority found Biden had failed to show his case was likely to succeed – and that the public holds a "weighty" and "significant" interest in examining the evidence behind Hur's decision not to charge him.

Only Biden-appointed Judge Florence Pan dissented, arguing Biden had shown a "substantial privacy interest."

Of course she did.

Democrats Told You He Was Sharp While His Own Tapes Said Otherwise

Democrats and their allies in the media spent years insisting Biden was sharp, present, and fully capable of running the most powerful government on earth.

They called it a smear.

They called it Republican propaganda.

Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson later wrote an entire book – Original Sin – documenting how Biden's inner circle ran what Senators John Cornyn and Eric Schmitt called a conspiracy to hide his condition from the American people.

Biden's own aides were whispering about his decline to reporters after the election.

Before the election, they were telling America he was "focused" and "detail-oriented."

Someone was lying.

The June 2024 debate ended the pretense – Biden blanked on live television and dropped out weeks later.

Now the recordings Hur described as capturing Biden's "diminished faculties" are headed to the Heritage Foundation, the House Judiciary Committee, and every American who wants to hear them.

Biden's team has one move left – emergency appeal to the Supreme Court before August 3.

That's a long shot.

Think about what was actually at stake in 2024.

You voted in an election where one candidate was – by his own special counsel's account – too likely to appear sympathetic to a jury to prosecute, even for mishandling classified documents.

The tapes and transcripts existed the entire time.

The Democrat Party, the White House press corps, and every major news network knew Hur had described a man "straining to read his own notebook entries" – and they told you he was ready to lead the free world for four more years.

Biden's lawyers want to call those conversations private.

The rest of America calls them the evidence.

Sources:

  • Ashley J. DiMella, "Biden's fight to keep Hur interview tapes under wraps suffers fresh court blow," Fox News, July 21, 2026.
  • "D.C. Circuit Crushes Joe Biden's Emergency Bid to Hide Damning Ghostwriter Audio," The Gateway Pundit, July 21, 2026.
  • "Appeals Court Upholds Ruling Allowing Release of Biden Audio Tapes," The Epoch Times, July 21, 2026.
  • "Biden Fought to Keep the Hur Tapes Secret. A Court Just Moved Them Closer to Release," RedState, July 21, 2026.
  • Senators John Cornyn and Eric Schmitt, Senate Hearing on Biden Cognitive Decline, June 18, 2025.