Summary: Biden files lawsuit in federal court in D.C. Justice Department plans limited redactions on recordings Heritage Foundation and House Judiciary Committee seek recordings  Former president Joe Biden sued the Justice Department on May 26, seeking to block the Trump administration from releasing the recordings and transcripts of his private interviews with a ghostwriter who was helping to write his memoir. The lawsuit argues that releasing the recordings would reflect an abandonment of the Justice Department’s “obligations to safeguard sensitive and highly personal law enforcement information.” The Justice Department informed Biden that it plans on June 15 to provide the material to a congressional committee and a conservative think tank that had filed a public records request, according to the lawsuit. The conversations Biden had with writer Mark Zwonitzer occurred in 2016 and 2017, in the years after Biden’s son Beau died of brain cancer and as he was contemplating a run for president. The Justice Department obtained the recordings during a 2023 special counsel investigation in which then-Attorney General Merrick Garland directed a probe into whether Biden, who had served as vice president from 2009 to 2017, mishandled classified materials in the years before he became president. Special counsel Robert K. Hur determined after an extensive investigation that while Biden carelessly handled sensitive material, no chargeable crime was committed. The current legal battle stems from a public records request lodged by the conservative Heritage Foundation in 2024 for those recorded conversations. They reportedly include Biden reading from notebooks chronicling his time in office that investigators determined contained classified information. The Justice Department, under Garland, had declined to release the recordings. At the time, according to the lawsuit, a department official opined that such a disclosure would be akin to “releasing the pages of an unindicted suspect’s diary entries, or the private text messages exchanged on the suspect’s phone - despite no charges having ever been brought.” The Heritage Foundation has continued to fight for the release of those recordings during the Trump administration, and in March, the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee also requested them. The Justice Department has said it plans to hand over the material with “limited redactions,” according to Biden’s attorneys. They contend that the decision to release the material is “capricious and arbitrary.” The lawsuit filed May 26 in federal court in D.C. accuses the Justice Department of suddenly reversing course from its Biden-era decision to block the release of the files. “Joe Biden’s Justice Department tried to hide audio recordings that clearly demonstrate a significant decline in his cognitive abilities as far back as 2016,” a Justice Department spokesman said in a statement May 27. “This is the most transparent Department of Justice in history, and we will fight to ensure the American people can hear these recordings and draw their own conclusions about the former President’s mental acuity before he sought the presidency.” The lawsuit alleges that the Justice Department is violating federal privacy laws and using what Biden’s lawyers described as a sham request from Congress as a way to circumvent federal laws around public records requests. Biden’s attorneys claim that there is no legislative reason for Congress to want the materials. The House Judiciary Committee has said that it wants the tapes as part of its oversight into the “politicization of the Biden-Garland Department of Justice.” “The Materials long predate the Special Counsel investigation over which the Committee purports to be conducting oversight and could not possibly shed light on the ‘politicization of the Biden-Garland Department of Justice’ - the Committee’s stated purpose,” the lawsuit states. The audio recording of Biden’s five-hour-plus interview with Hur was leaked to the media last year. Those tapes appeared to back Hur’s assertion that Biden would probably come across as an “an elderly man with a poor memory” if a case against him were brought to trial. (Reporting by Perry Stein, The Washington Post)

Summary: US Supreme Court rejects Meta’s jurisdiction challenge Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark leads lawsuit Meta faces similar lawsuits in Massachusetts and New Mexico The U.S. Supreme Court declined on May 26 to hear a bid by Meta Platforms to avoid a lawsuit brought by Vermont’s attorney general accusing the company of designing its Instagram social media app to be addictive to young users, as big technology companies face mounting legal risks over child and teen safety. The justices turned away Meta’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that let the lawsuit proceed, rejecting the company’s argument that courts in Vermont lack jurisdiction over the dispute. The case is part of a wave of litigation by individuals, municipalities, states and school districts nationwide amid a global backlash over the effects of social media on young users, with lawsuits focusing on the way companies designed and operated their platforms. Vermont argued that Instagram was designed to “exploit teenagers’ developing brains” to foster addiction and sell more advertising space, including ads that target Vermont markets and teens, and that Meta also intentionally misled consumers about the safety of its product. Meta said the state did not allege that it designed the app or its features in Vermont, or that any of the alleged misrepresentations about Instagram’s safety or addictiveness were made in Vermont. Testifying in February at a youth social media addiction trial in California, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied that Instagram targets kids. Vermont’s Democratic Attorney General Charity Clark sued Meta in 2023 in state court under the state’s consumer protection law, claiming that Instagram has even studied teens’ neurological, cognitive and psychological vulnerabilities to cause them to use the app compulsively and excessively, harming their mental health. The lawsuit was part of a coordinated effort involving 42 state attorneys general filing enforcement actions in both state and federal courts around the country. Meta sought to have the Vermont case dismissed. Meta has argued that allowing the case to proceed in Vermont is unfair, violating its right to due process under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, because it could subject the company to such legal challenges in all 50 states. The Vermont Supreme Court rejected this concern in 2025, noting that because the state sued Meta for allegedly pushing a harmful design and misleading users about it – harnessing personal information and generating revenue as a result – any due process concerns are “clearly extinguished.” “A company that reaches out and purposefully avails itself of a forum state’s market for its own economic gain can expect to be haled into court in that jurisdiction to account for its conduct related to those business activities,” the Vermont Supreme Court said. Meta’s appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court follows recent, unfavorable outcomes for the company in state courts. In April, the top court in Massachusetts ruled that Meta must face a similar youth addiction lawsuit by that state’s attorney general. In March, a jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties in a lawsuit by New Mexico’s attorney general, accusing the company of misleading users about the safety of Facebook and Instagram and of enabling child sexual exploitation on those platforms. Also in March, a separate jury in Los Angeles found Meta and Alphabet’s Google negligent for designing social media platforms that are harmful to young people, awarding a combined $6 million to a 20-year-old woman who said she became addicted to social media as a child. In May, Meta settled a lawsuit brought by a school district in Kentucky, one of thousands seeking to make social media companies cover the costs that schools say they have incurred to combat a mental health crisis allegedly fueled by platforms. (Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

Summary: Justice Department files to lift injunction on ballroom project U.S. District Judge Richard Leon issued injunction in April National Trust for Historic Preservation opposes lawsuit dismissal The U.S. Justice Department has again asked a federal judge to lift an injunction holding up progress on President Donald Trump's ballroom project, saying the May 23 shooting outside the White House showed an urgent need for improved security. The Justice Department, in a five-page court filing on Sunday, said the incident underscores the critical need for "top level, state of the art security at the White House, including the ballroom," adding that it was vital for national security. It also asks for the lawsuit challenging the project to be dismissed. The court filing stated: "This is a terrible, tremendously harmful case to the United States of America, and all it stands for!" U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of former President George ​W. Bush sitting in Washington, ruled in April that Trump lacked legal authority to ‌build the ⁠ballroom without congressional approval. Leon issued an injunction that halted "above-ground construction of the planned ballroom," but his order was quickly put on hold by an appeals court. Construction has continued. The DOJ had previously asked Leon to dissolve his injunction and throw out the lawsuit over the ballroom after a foiled attack at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in April. Leon has not acted on that request. The lawsuit was filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a congressionally chartered nonprofit organization. It said it would not drop its lawsuit after the attack in April, despite the Justice Department's request. The gunman who fired at a White House ‌checkpoint on May 23 was shot by officers and died after being taken to the hospital that evening, the Secret Service said. (Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston, editing by Deepa Babington, Rod Nickel)