(Headline USA) Once again, leftist in the deep state may be projecting the very tactics they intend to use against former President Donald Trump as a pretext for dodging accountability in a parallel matter involving President Joe Biden.
Suspicions swirled last week that the Biden campaign, or some surrogates colluding with it, may use artificial intelligence technology to fake a recording of Trump using the “n-word” after a long debunked rumor to that effect resurfaced.
But now, after failing to convince the public that the tape falls under the purview of normal executive privilege due to the justifications that the Biden administration itself made against Trump’s executive privilege arguments, Attorney General Merrick Garland and company are rolling out another novel legal argument with no basis in the law to excuse their illegal behavior.
Releasing the audio recording of special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Joe Biden could spur deepfakes and disinformation that trick Americans, the Justice Department claimed, as if that were justification for keeping the real information from the public.
The recording famously provided the basis for exonerating Biden from his classified documents scandal, one that was arguably far more damning than the one for which Garland authorized the raid on Mar-a-Lago and possible assassination of Trump.
Highlighting the two-tiered system of justice, Hur said in his report that no jury would convict Biden because he was not mentally lucid enough in the interview to show he understood the implications of his felony mishandling of classified information, which spanned several decades, dating back to when he was a U.S. senator.
Sensitive documents—some of which reportedly impact ongoing national security concerns—were kept in locations including Biden’s garage and an office space that his drug-addict son Hunter and multiple Chinese business partners had access to. Biden also committed another felony by volunteering to share the information with a biographer who did not have the appropriate security clearance.
Hur’s report, however, described the 81-year-old Democrat’s memory as “hazy,” “poor” and having “significant limitations.” It noted that Biden could not recall such milestones as when his son Beau died or when he served as vice president.
A senior Justice Department official raised the AI concerns in a court filing on Friday that sought to convince a judge to prevent the release of the recording.
A conservative group that’s suing to force the release of the recording called the argument a “red herring.”
Mike Howell of the Heritage Foundation accused the Justice Department of trying to protect Biden from potential embarrassment.
“They don’t want to release this audio at all,” said Howell, executive director of the group’s oversight project. “They are doing the kitchen sink approach and they are absolutely freaked out they don’t have any good legal argument to stand on.”
The Justice Department declined to comment Monday beyond its filing.
It has previously argued witnesses might be less likely to cooperate if they know their interviews might become public. It has also said that Republican efforts to force the audio’s release could make it harder to protect sensitive law enforcement files.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the Democratic chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told the Associated Press that he was concerned that the audio might be manipulated by bad actors using AI. Nevertheless, the senator said, it should be made public.
“You’ve got to release the audio,” Warner said, though it would need some “watermarking components, so that if it was altered” journalists and others “could cry foul.”
The Justice Department’s concerns about deepfakes came in a court papers filed in response to legal action brought under the Freedom of Information Act by a coalition of media outlets and other groups, including the Heritage Foundation and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, one of the far-left lawfare groups that previously attempted to block Trump from appearing on the ballot in several states.
The bipartisan appeal for transparency underscores the anti-democratic nature of the DOJ’s actions, while suggesting also that both sides remain convinced that the recordings will somehow validate their political arguments for or against Biden.
Yet, there are a growing number of left-wing groups that are also seeking to have Biden, 81, removed as the nominee and replaced with a more viable candidate in light of his poor approval numbers and advanced age, among other things.
An attorney for the media coalition, which includes the Associated Press, said Monday that the public has the right to hear the recording and weigh whether the special counsel “accurately described” Biden’s interview.
“The government stands the Freedom of Information Act on its head by telling the Court that the public can’t be trusted with that information,” the attorney, Chuck Tobin, wrote in an email.
Bradley Weinsheimer, an associate deputy attorney general for the Justice Department, acknowledged “malicious actors” could easily utilize unrelated audio recordings of Hur and Biden to create a fake version of the interview.
However, he claimed, releasing the actual audio would make it harder for the public to distinguish deepfakes from the real one.
“If the audio recording is released, the public would know the audio recording is available and malicious actors could create an audio deepfake in which a fake voice of President Biden can be programed to say anything that the creator of the deepfake wishes,” Weinsheimer wrote.
Experts in identifying AI-manipulated content said the Justice Department had legitimate concerns in seeking to limit AI’s dangers, but its arguments could have far-reaching consequences.
“If we were to go with this strategy, then it is going to be hard to release any type of content out there, even if it is original,” said Alon Yamin, co-founder of Copyleaks, an AI-content detection service that primarily focuses on text and code.
Nikhel Sus, deputy chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said he has never seen the government raise concerns about AI in litigation over access to government records.
He said he suspected such arguments could become more common.
“Knowing how the Department of Justice works, this brief has to get reviewed by several levels of attorneys,” Sus said. “The fact that they put this in a brief signifies that the Department stands behind it as a legal argument, so we can anticipate that we will see the same argument in future cases.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
