Under the Radar Blog Archives Select Date… August, 2020 July, 2020 June, 2020 May, 2020 April, 2020 March, 2020 February, 2020 January, 2020 December, 2019 November, 2019 October, 2019 September, 2019

Huge trove of Hillary Clinton White House files set for release

A massive collection of documents related to Hillary Clinton's policy work as first lady is set to go public this spring, just as her expected campaign to return to the White House could be ramping up.

The more than 180,000 pages of records come largely from the files of Clinton's policy advisers in her husband's White House and cover topics such as welfare, equal pay, family leave, civil rights, race, poverty and health care reform.

While many Clinton Library records have been released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, the massive new batch was reviewed on the initiative of the library's professional archivists as part of what the National Archives calls "systematic processing."

The Archives formally notified President Barack Obama's White House and President Bill Clinton's representative Bruce Lindsey on Jan. 8. about the planned release. Under a federal law passed last year and signed by Obama, the current and former president have 60 business days to assert executive privilege in an effort to block the release of some or all of the records. That review period can be extended once, for 30 business days, but no further extensions are permitted.

No assertions of executive privilege over historical records are known to have taken place during Obama's tenure, though the White House repeatedly extended its review of some files, resulting in lengthy delays.

The process dictated by the new law could result in the Hillary Clinton policy records becoming public sometime between April and June, depending on how long it takes the Archives to prepare the files for release. Even under the new proposed release, several thousand pages will still be closed to research, often due to privacy or national security concerns.

In addition to the first lady-related records, the Clinton Library is planning to release records on several other topics, including the sensitive issue of President Clinton's signing in 1996 of a law banning federal recognition of same-sex marriages, the Defense of Marriage Act. Almost 5,000 pages of Clinton White House records on DOMA are set to go public, likely on a similar schedule to the Hillary Clinton records.

"The records...describe correspondence regarding same-sex marriage between gay rights advocates, government officials, religious leaders, and White House staff and internal White House discussions on how these issues should be handled. Additional materials relate to Department of Justice comments on portions of DOMA," the Archives said in a Jan. 9 letter to White House Counsel Neil Eggleston.

In addition to imposing deadlines for reviews by current and former presidents, the new law exposes more of the mechanics of the disclosure process, requiring the Archives to make public its notices of proposed releases. The notice regarding Hillary Clinton's first lady files can be viewed here and that for the DOMA documents can be viewed here.

Spokespeople for the Obama White House, for Hillary Clinton and President Clinton did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the proposed releases.

UPDATE (Tuesday, 7:58 P.M.): Due to what officials say was a typographical error in an Archives document, the initial version of this post understated by about 25,000 the number of pages of Hillary Clinton-related records set to be released. The original document is here. The updated version is here.