(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, reported that a Vermont state court ruled against Howard Dean and the State of Vermont in Judicial Watch’s lawsuit seeking access to hundreds of thousands of gubernatorial records. The state court ruled today that a private agreement between Dean and the State of Vermont could not be used to prevent the public access to Dean’s records. Rather than “letting a judge decide,” Dean’s lawyers had asked the court summarily to throw out Judicial Watch’s lawsuit. The court ruled instead that the private Dean agreement could not “obviate the plain meaning of the [Vermont] Public Records Act…” As a result of the court’s ruling, Dean will be required to detail the records he is seeking to keep secret and explain specifically why they are supposedly subject to executive privilege.

Dean cited his presidential run as the basis for denying the public access to these government records, telling Vermont Public Radio and other news organizations, “Well, there are future political considerations. We didn’t want anything embarrassing appearing in the papers at a critical time in any future endeavor.” Judicial Watch uncovered, through a public records request, that, in negotiating the side agreement to seal the records, lawyers for Dean and Vermont state officials repeatedly discussed Dean’s presidential campaign as a basis for keeping the records secret.

Dean and the State of Vermont will now be required to provide an index of the sealed documents and a specific justification for keeping them sealed. Dean has thus far refused to detail to the court or Judicial Watch the nature of the documents he is seeking to seal for ten years. A copy of the court ruling will be available on the Judicial Watch Internet site at www.judicialwatch.org.

“Howard Dean is now getting a lesson in government openness. The court ruling pierces Dean’s veil of secrecy and begins to open up his gubernatorial record to public scrutiny,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

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