Clinton trove is locked away from the public
Voluminous records from her years as first lady aren't likely to be released before '08 elections.
By Peter Nicholas
Los Angeles Times
LITTLE ROCK - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton touts her experience as one reason voters should make her president, but nearly two million pages of documents covering her White House years are locked up in a building here, obscuring a large swath of her record as first lady.
Clinton's calendars, appointment logs and memos are stored at her husband's presidential library, in the custody of federal archivists who do not expect them to be released until after the 2008 presidential election.
A trove of records has been made public detailing the Clinton White House's attempts to remake the nation's health-care system, following a request from President Bill Clinton that those materials be released first. Hillary Clinton led the health-care effort in 1993 and 1994.
But even in the health-care documents, at least 1,000 pages involving her work have been censored by archives staff because they include confidential advice and must be kept secret under the federal Presidential Records Act. Political consultants said that if her records were made public, rivals would mine them for scraps of information that might rattle her campaign.
"Those files - that's the mother lode of opposition research," said Ray McNally, a Republican political consultant in Sacramento, Calif. "Opposition researchers would be very hungry to see what's there."
Clinton trove is locked away from the public | Inquirer | 08/15/2007
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