“In the weeks after November 18, we’re going to make every effort to open as much as we can,” Clinton Library Director David Alsobrook told the Associated Press September 17. “But people need to realize that what we open doesn’t have to do with what we want to do; our hands are bound by the provisions of the Presidential Records Act.”
Unless Bush accedes to Clinton’s request, the only records that are certain to be available at the library’s opening are some 500,000 pages involving former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s health care task force, which were released by a federal court order in 1994.
President Bush’s control over presidential records came under fire with his nomination in April of historian Allen Weinstein for archivist of the United States. Weinstein is still under review by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, which could delay his Senate confirmation hearing until after the November elections, the Washington Post reported July 26.
Some Democratic senators claim that Bush had pushed current archivist John W. Carlin, who was appointed in 1995 by President Clinton, to resign in order to appoint someone more amenable to keeping his father’s sensitive papers, which are due to become public in January, under wraps. Another point of contention is Bush’s March 2003 Executive Order 13292 on classified national security information, which places more severe restrictions on the release of presidential papers.
Weinstein assured the committee during a July 22 hearing that the public would have as much access to government archives as possible, saying he opposed the executive order as tilting the balance in favor of less public disclosure. He also rejected the accusation that he had made a deal to keep any presidential papers secret.
Posted September 24, 2004.