The Justice Department told a federal judge late Monday that it has located transcripts it previously denied having of President Joe Biden’s talks with a biographer that played a role in the recently completed criminal investigation into Biden’s handling of classified material before he became president.

In the wake of a report special counsel Robert Hur issued in February that described Biden as “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the Justice Department has been swamped with Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits demanding access to various records related to Hur’s probe.

Some of the requests came from news outlets, while others originated with conservative groups apparently seeking to obtain information that could reinforce doubts about Biden’s mental acuity and fitness for the presidency. Nagging concerns about those issues, particularly after a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump last month, helped drive Biden’s announcement Sunday that he is dropping his bid for reelection.

It’s unclear whether his exit from the race will affect the handling of Hur’s materials by the Justice Department, which has argued that the release of audio of Biden’s interviews with Hur would violate the president’s privacy, lead to potential abuse — such as deepfakes — and deter other witnesses from agreeing to recorded interviews. Biden asserted executive privilege over the audio recordings of his interviews in a bid to head off House Republicans’ effort to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to release the recordings.

At a hearing last month, DOJ lawyers handling one Freedom of Information case told U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich that it would be highly time-consuming to process other audio files containing Biden’s interviews with writer Mark Zwonitzer. The attorneys said those recordings stretched to 70 hours and reviewing audio for potential classified material is far more difficult than written material.

“We don’t have some transcript that’s been created by the special counsel that we can attest to its accuracy,” Justice Department lawyer Cameron Silverberg told Friedrich at the June 18 hearing on a suit brought by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

However, Silverberg said in a court filing Monday night that the department “in the past few days” confirmed that Hur’s office had transcripts made of a portion of Biden’s discussions with Zwonitzer, which occurred as Biden worked with him on memoirs published in 2007 and 2017. Prosecutors determined that some of those conversations contained classified information, although they were barred by Justice Department policy from pursuing charges against a sitting president and said they would not have done so in any event because of the imprecision of Biden’s memory and other factors.

“In the past few days…the Department located six electronic files, consisting of a total of 117 pages, that appeared to be verbatim transcripts of a small subset of the Biden-Zwonitzer audio recordings created for the SCO by a court-reporting service,” Silverberg wrote in the new filing.

In its efforts to wade through the records being demanded by conservative groups and news organizations, the Justice Department also reversed itself on another matter, the new filing reveals.

DOJ officials had resisted requests from Heritage to contact Hur and find out what materials he relied upon for key portions of his report, but amidst the confusion over the transcripts, it reached out to another unnamed person involved in Hur’s probe, according to the filing.

When that person was unavailable, the Justice Department relented and contacted Hur directly, the new submission says.

In a conversation with the former special counsel, Hur acknowledged relying on the Biden-Zwonitzer audio — as well as a portion of Biden’s handwritten notes pertaining to a memo about Afghanistan — to compile his report. Silverberg said he would confer with the parties seeking access to Hur’s materials about whether they would like Biden’s notes processed for potential release as well.

Friedrich has set a hearing in the case for Tuesday morning.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle utterly failed Monday to reassure lawmakers that she was still the best person for the job after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, instead prompting members from both parties to call for her resignation in real time.

During the nearly five-hour long hearing in front of the Oversight Committee, members of the typically polarized committee united in questioning how Cheatle could remain on the job and lambasted her for evading inquiries — on everything from the failures that preceded the Trump rally shooting to general questions about the impact of gun violence. It was a particularly rare note of agreement for a panel that has openly and bitterly fought over a broad impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden, and a bad sign for Cheatle’s hopes of hanging on.

“This committee is not known for … its model of bipartisanship, but I think today we came together unanimously in our disappointment in your lack of answers,” Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) told Cheatle.

Cheatle’s position seemed to deteriorate as the hearing went on and the number of lawmakers piling on her for non-answers and shrugs began to climb.

Democrats were equally frustrated. Progressive Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) told Cheatle that she didn’t believe “any of our concerns have been addressed today, and what little we’ve learned has not inspired much confidence.” And in a potential precursor of more calls to come, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the panel, and a handful of other Democrats joined widespread GOP calls for Cheatle to resign. Both Comer and Raskin sent a letter to Cheatle officially demanding that she step aside after the hearing concluded.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), one of the Democrats who called on her to resign, compared Cheatle’s performance on Monday to an unrelated hearing earlier this year with three university presidents, two of whom subsequently resigned.

“That’s how this is going for you. This is where this is headed,” he said, saying that he supports Cheatle resigning or being fired.

Republicans and Democrats repeatedly expressed a shared sense of outrage that the world’s premier law enforcement agency could allow a 20-year-old to get a clear shot at the former president.

“You’re not doing well, as Mr. Moskowitz informed you,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) added.

Cheatle acknowledged that the assassination attempt was the “most significant operational failure” for the agency in decades. But she followed that admission with a series of evasive answers about the details of what went wrong, repeatedly citing the ongoing review or deferring to the FBI, which is also leading an investigation.

But that caveat bought her little goodwill with members of the committee. Instead, they repeatedly pressed her to give them answers on details, including how the gunman was able to get on a roof roughly 150 yards away from Trump, why Trump was allowed onto the stage and what actions the Secret Service has taken since the shooting.

“This is not just a single shooting, this is about national security and the security of our democracy,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.). “It’s not just one operational failure. This is about: Are our public officials safe?”

“The answers that we’ve received here in this hearing today are completely unsatisfactory,” Stansbury added.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), in remarks that sparked pushback from Democrats, told Cheatle that she was “full of shit today.” Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a member of the Oversight Committee, added that it looked like she wouldn’t “answer some pretty basic questions.”

Cheatle did delve into some of the circumstances surrounding the Saturday shooting. She told lawmakers that, while she didn’t have a specific number, she believed “there was some sort of communication” about a suspicious individual to the Secret Service between two and five times. She also told lawmakers that the gunman’s vehicle was outside of the security perimeter and that the Secret Service didn’t know the gunman had a weapon when they allowed Trump to walk out onto the stage.

But that was only a fraction of the long list of questions that Cheatle faced on Monday.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) warned Cheatle that the absence of information had helped fuel conspiracy theories about the shooting and that members were “begging” for details to help rebut them.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) called on Cheatle to resign and repeatedly questioned why she wouldn’t. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told her that it was “not acceptable” to wait weeks before giving more detailed answers about the security failures. And Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) asked Cheatle why she was answering “fewer” questions from lawmakers than she did during an ABC News interview that has sparked scrutiny.

“I don’t like the fact that the media has received far more answers than Congress has. … You should have come prepared here today,” Goldman told Cheatle.

Cheatle further rankled Democrats with her refusal to grapple with questions about the dangers guns pose to Secret Service protectees. They specifically pushed her on the threat posed by semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 style rifle used in the Trump shooting.

“The ubiquity of guns, dangerous weapons in America like AR-15s, has that made your job — that is to say the mission of the Secret Service — easier or more difficult?” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) asked.

“I think the threat environment for protecting our Secret Service protectees is always difficult and that’s dynamic,” Cheatle responded, apparently wary of wading into an argument about regulating firearms. “I understand the Second Amendment rights of individuals.”

“I didn’t ask that question. I’m not questioning the Second Amendment,” Connolly shot back. “You’re not making my job easier in terms of assessing your qualifications for continuing on as director.”

Connolly, shortly after the hearing ended, called on Cheatle to resign.

Former U.S. Rep. George Santos on Friday lost a bid to get rid of part of the criminal case against him as he heads toward trial on charges that include defrauding campaign donors.

U.S. District Joanna Seybert turned down Santos’ request to dismiss charges of aggravated identity theft and theft of public money — in all, three of the 23 charges against the New York Republican.

Prosecutors and Santos’ lawyers declined to comment.

Prosecutors have accused Santos of a range of crimes — among them lying to Congress about his wealth, collecting unemployment benefits while actually working, and using campaign contributions to pay for such personal expenses as designer clothing. He pleaded not guilty to a revised indictment in October.

The aggravated identity theft charges pertain to allegations that Santos used campaign donors’ credit card information to make repeated contributions they hadn’t authorized. Prosecutors say he also tried to hide the true source of the money — and evade campaign contribution limits — by listing the donations as coming from some of his relatives and associates, without their assent.

Santos’ lawyers argued in court filings that the aggravated identity theft charges were invalid because, in the defense’s view, the allegations amounted only to overcharging credit card accounts that had been willingly provided to him.

Prosecutors disputed that argument. They said in filings that Santos hadn’t just “used” the credit card information but “abused it, with specific intent to defraud” in order to make his campaign coffers look fuller.

The theft of public funds charge relates to the alleged unemployment fraud.

Santos’ lawyers said the charge improperly combined multiple alleged criminal schemes and transactions. Courts have said in other cases that such combination isn’t allowed for various reasons, including the possibility that jurors could convict on the charge while believing a defendant guilty of only part of it.

Prosecutors in Santos’ case said the theft of public funds charge against him alleges “a single continuing scheme.”

The former Congress member is slated to go on trial in September in Central Islip, on New York’s Long Island.

In April, he dropped his longshot bid to return to Congress as an independent in New York’s 1st Congressional District, on Long Island.

Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) said on Sunday he believes it is time for President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race, after previously saying he supported him in the race.

“I came to the decision with a heavy heart that I think it’s time to pass the torch to a new generation,” Manchin said in an interview with host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He also called on Biden to step down on ABC’s “This Week,” using very similar phrasing.

“He will go down with a legacy unlike many people, as one of the finest and truly a patriot American,” Manchin said on “This Week.” “So with that I come with a heavy heart to think the time has come for him to pass the torch to a new generation.”

Manchin’s call to withdraw comes after Democratic senators in swing states, such as Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, have made the same plea. He is now the fifth senator to call on Biden to not seek reelection.

The president has reiterated that he does not plan to leave the ticket.

“While the majority of the Democratic caucus and the diverse base of the party continues to stand with the President and his historic record of delivering for their communities, we’re clear-eyed that the urgency and stakes of beating Donald Trump means others feel differently. We all share the same goal: an America where everyone gets a fair shot and freedom and democracy are protected,” Biden campaign spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said in a statement. “Unlike Republicans, we’re a party that accepts —and even celebrates — differing opinions, but in the end, we will absolutely come together to beat Donald Trump this November.”

Manchin, who was elected as a Democrat but became an independent on May 31, also supported an open primary process for Democrats as the next step if Biden were to step down. He did not name Vice President Kamala Harris, but said there is “a lot of talent on the bench,” and the former West Virginia governor said he is “partial to governors.”

“A governor can’t afford to be partial, they can’t afford to be partisan, strictly because that pothole or that bridges doesn’t have a D or an R on it,” Manchin said. “I’ve got two tremendous governors right next door to me, Andy Beshear in Kentucky and Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, who are operating with legislatures either evenly split or completely opposite of their party affiliation. They haven’t divided their state.”

He added, “This is what an open process would do. I think it would bring more people out in a process that could bring Democrats like me back.”

Manchin said he didn’t know what that open process would look like considering there are only three weeks until the Democratic National Convention, but that once they get to the convention, everything will change. He also ruled out a presidential run for himself, saying he would rather support a “new generation.”

“People keep talking about race and gender — it’s not about race and gender, it’s about positions, it’s about basically who we are,” Manchin said. “I left the Democrat Party because it’s not the Democratic Party that I grew up in, that I always knew.”

The independent senator, who has had his own disagreements with the president over the past four years, said he wants Biden to stay in the presidency through November.

He specifically said in five months Biden could “help heal this nation” and “bring the world together” — and that the president should be solely focused on that.

“That takes a full-time 24/7 president not being worried about where you got to go campaign, got to give a speech, got to go out, raise money,” Manchin said. “And I think his legacy will be one of the greatest legacies of any of our leaders.”

Manchin added that as someone who has been through statewide campaigns, it is challenging “to anybody physically, mentally, every way, shape and form.”

“Right now, the country and the world needs our President Joe Biden with a compassion he’s always had and the ability to bring people together, to use all of his forces and energy toward that,” Manchin said.