We already have the transcript of Joe Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur. Yet now the DOJ and White House are claiming special executive privilege to keep the AUDIO from being released because of AI deepfake concerns.

The Justice Department is seizing on an increasingly common fear as it fights to prevent the release of the audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with former special counsel Robert Hur: It could spawn deepfakes.

The concern — raised as part of an overnight court filing late Friday — is the latest step in a multi-pronged legal battle aimed at forcing the Justice Department to release the audio, which Biden claimed executive privilege over last month.

That absurd claim is raising eyebrows all over the place. We already know many of Joe’s campaign sound bites have been manipulated, a LOT.

I'm not a young guy. That's no secret. But, here's the deal: I understand how to get things done for the American people.

Here’s the first ad of our spring media campaign. pic.twitter.com/SFvwMdgzwv

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) March 9, 2024

And, the Biden-Harris campaign does it all the time regarding anything Trump does or says. 

We’ve pointed out multiple times Joe’s stumbling and mumbling during speeches and commentary these last three years. The few media interviews he has given are very, and I mean, VERY carefully scripted. Yet now Joe and his handlers at the DOJ and White House are claiming an extra special privilege over the audio tapes of the interview with Hur because of AI concerns?

Judicial Watch has the original transcript linked here. 

But they also announced that the new filing from the DOJ admits that there has been some manipulation of the transcript. 

After the interview, SCO [Special Counsel Office] created written transcripts of the audio recording with the assistance of a trained professional court reporter – one transcript for each day of the interview. I have read the entirety of the written transcripts of the interview. As I listened to the audio recording, I compared it to the transcripts of the audio recording and specifically listened for differences between the transcripts and audio recording. In a few instances, the transcripts indicate that some words from the audio recording are indiscernible. In listening to the audio recording and reviewing the transcripts, I agree that in those instances the words are indiscernible.

14. The interview transcripts are accurate transcriptions of the words of the interview contained in the audio recording, except for minor instances such as the use of filler words (such as “um” or “uh”) when speaking that are not always reflected on the transcripts, or when words may have been repeated when spoken (such as “I, I” or “and, and”) but sometimes was only listed a single time in the transcripts. Besides these exceedingly minor differences, based on my simul­taneous review of the transcripts while listening to the audio recording, the transcripts accurately capture the words spoken during the interview on the audio recording with no material differences between the audio recording and transcripts.

If Joe is totally sharp and with it, why alter the transcript, and why stall on releasing the audio? The AI deepfake concerns are ludicrous given the fact that anything and everything could be manipulated well before AI came along! Not only that, but Jonathan Turley points out that this sets yet another dangerous precedent if this so-called privilege is allowed to proceed.

…The filing is logically and legally absurd. It is also dangerous. The argument would allow staff to completely control any public or, more importantly, congressional review of his actual speech and discourse.

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 2, 2024

In addition to those very real concerns, there’s another legal issue at stake here, as HotAir’s Jazz Shaw points out. To wit: the Presidential Records Act. Which means any government transcript written or audio cannot be manipulated or changed or have words disappear/be destroyed, as Joe’s ghostwriter did. 

The Hur interview with Joe Biden is an official LEGAL record.

By this admission from the DOJ, it certainly looks like the transcript itself was altered and could lead one to believe the audio is or was manipulated as well. 

The fact that this spurious argument is being made by Merrick Garland’s Justice Department is another disappointing sign that he has abandoned his pledge to remain apolitical in office. This litigation is clearly designed for one overriding purpose: to delay any release until after the election when it cannot harm the President.

It is the legal version of a deepfake — misrepresenting the law to mislead citizens into believing that they are better off with less information on the credibility and competence of their president.

This feels like falsifying a record to influence an election https://t.co/LpdcyvNDps

— Phil Holloway ✈️ (@PhilHollowayEsq) June 1, 2024

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck… 

The office of the presidency is not a "private" matter. The American people have a right to know and to assess the credibility of the sitting President Joe Biden in a criminal investigation that was ultimately dropped under suspect pretenses.

Joe Biden is running for four more…

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) June 1, 2024

Here’s another point to consider on this. Hur is on record stating that one of the reasons they declined to prosecute is that Joe is an “elderly man with a poor memory.” 

Reading the transcript itself is painful. With the DOJ and White House asserting specialized privilege over the audio, one can only conclude that it would definitively show Joe’s cognitive decline. 

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