George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley criticized the Department of Justice (DOJ) Monday for claiming that the possibility of a “deepfake” as a result of artificial intelligence (AI) warranted blocking the release of audio of an interview with President Joe Biden.
According to Politico, the DOJ raised the possibility of manipulative AI use in a Friday court filing seeking to block the release of Biden’s interview with the office of special counsel Robert Hur.
Turley said that the Justice Department’s “illogical” argument made no sense, saying that the release of the tape would make it more difficult to produce deepfakes of the conversation.
Read: Trump Pledges To Find And Return Missing Migrant Children; Blasts Biden Over Many ‘Dead’ Kids
“It is neither legally nor practically sensible to make that argument. The fact is, that if you release the audiotape, it’s going to make it easier to refute any deepfake version,” Turley told “America Reports” co-hosts Sandra Smith and John Roberts. “Right now, AI could produce that, because you have the transcript and part of the problem for the Department of Justice is their position has never made any sense.”
“You release the transcript as unprivileged, that you are claiming the audio version is privileged, as if this is sort of a Voldemortian ‘he who shall not be heard’ type of candidate,” Turley continued. “The impression is that they’re not worried about a false version of the audiotape, they are worried about the real audiotape being heard before the election. It is a transparent effort to get the court to hold the audiotape, or at least keep it in litigation, until people have voted.”
In the filing, the Justice Department also admitted to making alternations to the transcripts, according to Judicial Watch, a public interest law firm seeking the release of the audio from Biden’s interview. The Biden administration invoked executive privilege to block the audio on May 16.
Read: Biden Disputes Special Counsel Robert Hur, “How in The Hell Dare He Raise That?”
The White House made 148 alterations to address what it claimed were “errors” Biden made while speaking, according to a review of White House transcripts by the Daily Caller.
The transcript of Hur’s two-day interview with Biden revealed the president struggled to remember the day his son Beau died, when former President Donald Trump was elected and also thought the year was 2017. Hur declined to charge Biden, describing the president as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Biden’s age and mental fitness have become issues in recent months. Biden claimed on Feb. 8 to have spoken with former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl about the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, even though Kohl died in 2017, three days after he claimed to have spoken with former French President Francois Mitterrand, who passed away in 1996.
The House Oversight Committee marked up a resolution on May 16 to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress after Garland refused to turn over recordings of Hur’s interview with Biden regarding Biden’s retention of classified material during his time as a senator and vice president.
First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Help support the Tampa Free Press by making any small donation by clicking here.
Android Users, Click To Download The Tampa Free Press App And Never Miss A Story. Follow Us On Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our free newsletter.