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White House extends review of Clinton records

President Barack Obama's White House has moved to extend the review of roughly 8,000 pages of Clinton White House documents withheld under confidentiality provisions which expired early last year, according to a statement issued by the National Archives.

After inquiries from POLITICO last month, the White House and the National Archives announced that about 25,000 pages of previously-withheld records at the Clinton Library had been cleared for release in a process that involves consultations with representatives of former President Bill Clinton and lawyers at the Obama White House. In recent weeks, the library has posted two batches of those records online, with each batch amounting to several thousand pages.

(PHOTOS: Speechwriter doodles in the Clinton files)

However, the Archives said in its statement Thursday that the White House recently extended from March 26 to April 26 a deadline to complete review of another group of records previously estimated at 8,000 pages.

It's unclear what precipitated the extension. A Clinton spokesman declined to comment. A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

The delay doesn't necessarily mean a major gap in releases, since more than 15,000 pages are believed to still be cleared for release and are going through preparation by the library for public postings.

(PHOTOS: Clinton controversies could emerge in library docs)

In January, the House passed, 420-0, a bill that would limit the current and former president's review period for presidential records to 60 days with a single 30-day extension possible. The Senate has yet to act on the measure.

UPDATE (Thursday, 8:29 P.M.): This post has been updated with a Clinton spokesman declining to comment.