Bill Clinton Has Still Not Released 1980s Arkansas Records

[tsipple]

This item is in this week's U.S. News and World Report, the third ranking news weekly magazine:

Follow The Leader
In refusing to release his gubernatorial papers, presidential hopeful Howard Dean might actually be following the lead of the last Democratic guv to win the Oval Office. We learn that only now is Bill Clinton considering releasing his documents from the 1980s. Friends in Little Rock say the mile-long collection of boxes has to be organized before being released.

Note that most of Governor Dean's gubernatorial records are public. Some records are under currently under seal until January, 2013. All records are under state ownership and control, administered by the Vermont Secretary of State under advice of the Vermont Attorney General.

Judicial Watch filed suit against the Vermont Secretary of State to release the sealed records. Governor Dean is not contesting the lawsuit (and may not have standing to do so). Dean urges the judge in the case to review all remaining documents and release those to the public that, in his estimation, would not jeopardize personal privacy, and to do so as promptly as he can. (Courts routinely appoint "special masters" to perform this work.)

The Vermont records in question are less numerous than Clinton's and much newer. They date from August, 1991, when Dean took office upon the sudden death of Republican Governor Snelling. Somehow Clinton's sealed Arkansas records escaped public exposure even through multiple lawsuits during his two terms as President.

Dean's opponents for the Democratic nomination have thus far not called on Bill Clinton to release his older records from his terms as Arkansas's governor, although former President Clinton is considering doing so anyway.

Many (if not most) of President George W. Bush's Texas gubernatorial records are inaccessible to the public with no plans for their release during his term or anytime soon thereafter.

(On edit: Clarified a few points about Dean's records, and added Bush information.)

[GOPisEvil]

1. Nothing about Smirk's hiding his records in daddy's Presidential Library?

Figures. Damned librul media...

[tsipple]

2. Yes, Good Point

President George W. Bush still has his gubernatorial records inaccessible to public view with no plans to release these records during his term or anytime soon thereafter.

[caledesi]

3. Well the records may be in library, but according to Texas

open-records they are public.

President Bush acted lawfully in sending his gubernatorial papers 118 miles away to his father's presidential library instead of the state archives across the street from the Texas Capitol, but the documents are state property and subject to Texas' open-records law, the Texas attorney general, John Cornyn, decided yesterday....

At the behest of Mr. Bush, who was then governor, Texas enacted a law in 1997 that gave its governors the right to name an alternate depository for their official papers. But details of such a transfer remained murky under the law....


http://www.thememoryhole.org/wbush-records.htm

[Jacobin]

4. They didn't need records for Bill, they used Whitewater, et al

to smear him.

Gotta give it to those repukes (and "dem" attackers of Dean), they are no one trick ponies!!! They come up with new and completely unfair smears at the drop of a hat. They are talented at ruining people for no reason!!

[bleedingheart]

5. Reagan, Bush Sr and Bush Jr have not released a great number

of their records...