George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley criticized the Department of Justice on Monday for its unusual reasoning in blocking the release of audio from President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur’s office. In a Friday court filing, the DOJ said that the potential for AI-generated “deepfakes” was a reason for not releasing the audio, according to Politico.
Turley found the Justice Department’s argument “illogical,” saying that releasing the audiotape would actually make it harder to create deepfakes of the conversation. “If you release the audiotape, it’s going to be easier to prove that any deepfake version is fake,” Turley explained to “America Reports” co-hosts Sandra Smith and John Roberts.
The law professor also pointed out that the DOJ’s position doesn’t make sense because they released the transcript as unprivileged while claiming the audio version is privileged. Turley suggested that the administration might be more worried about the public hearing the real audiotape before the election, rather than a fake version.
Judicial Watch, a public interest law firm trying to get the audio released, said that the Justice Department admitted to making changes to the transcripts in the filing. The Biden administration used executive privilege to block the audio on May 16.
The House Oversight Committee voted to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress on May 16 after Garland refused to give them recordings of Hur’s interview with Biden. The interview was about the president keeping classified material when he was a senator and vice president.
Biden’s age and mental fitness have become bigger issues in recent months. The transcript of the two-day interview showed the president having trouble remembering the day his son Beau died, when former President Donald Trump was elected, and even thinking the year was 2017. Despite these memory problems, Hur decided not to charge Biden, calling the president “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
