2/26/2014

Remember Hillary Clinton's promise "everything’s going to be available" from the Clinton Presidential Library?


Larry King: Well, make a call as I said. Do you think the impeachment thing was handled tastefully and well?
Hillary Clinton: I do. I do. I’ve told everyone that the history was going to be full and accurate. Nothing’s left out. Obviously, not everything can be shown. But there’s going to be access to all of the documents. In fact, Bill is going to be making his documents accessible even earlier than legally required.
Larry King: He is?
Hillary Clinton: He is. Because he really thinks it’s important. That’s one of the things the library really stands for. It physically stands for openness with all the glass and the light. But he wants it to be a place where people come and really study. And everything’s going to be available.
Here is another promise from her in 2008 "as rapidly as its circumstances and processes allow."  What was clear was that all the documents would be released at least by the legally required date at the end of 2012.



Of course, that was then, this is now.  Politico reports that 33,000 pages of documents from the Clinton White House at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., are still being kept hidden from the public despite their processed status and the expiration more than a year ago of the legal reasoning for withholding the documents. 
Under the Presidential Records Act, such records can be withheld for up to 12 years after a president leaves office. However, at the 12-year mark, those broad restrictions fall away and the once-secret presidential papers are generally subject to disclosure. For the Clinton files, that milestone came and went in January 2013.  
The long-sealed records pose a delicate series of choices for the Clintons, and even President Barack Obama. They could allow disclosure of the papers, fueling new stories about old controversies like Whitewater and pardons granted as the 42nd president left office in 2001. Or they could fight to keep some or all of the files secret, likely triggering a court battle and stoking concerns that the former president and his wife are unduly secretive. . . .
Will Hillary be claiming that a Hillary Clinton administration will be the most open and transparent ever?  Something to remember when the next presidential race gets started.

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