Statement on Clinton Library Document Release

Judicial Watch Statement on Clinton Library Document Release

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch issued a statement today regarding the release of thousands of pages of news documents related to the Clinton presidency by the National Archives, which runs the Clinton Library in Little Rock where the documents were held.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said:

These documents are a long-time coming.  It took critical news stories and Judicial Watch lawsuits (and the threat of Judicial Watch lawsuits) to extract this latest batch of documents after an inexcusable delay.

The Clinton administration was rife with secrecy and corruption, so any new bits of information may be important.  We’ve been battling for some of this material for nearly a decade.  And now we know the Obama administration slow-rolled these documents out.  The Presidential Records Act is supposed to be about transparency, but this latest game shows the Clinton and Obama administration has turned this transparency law into a secrecy law.

Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for an estimated 33,000 pages of Clinton Presidential Library documents originally withheld under a legal provision which expired last January.  Judicial Watch had previously filed suits to obtain access the Clinton administration Health Care Task Force records and Mrs. Clinton’s schedules and phone logs.

Judicial Watch sent the FOIA request to the Clinton Library Wednesday and has the option to file suit in court in 20 days.

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