Hello? Now, Judicial Watch wants Hillary Clinton's phone logs

First came the daily schedules from former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s files with the release of 11,046 pages of material yesterday covering 2,888 days of her life in the White House.

Great. Fine. Her campaign, which hasn't seemed all that eager to put these papers out in public view as proof she gathered valuable experience then that qualifies her to be president now, used the release occasion to call on Barack Obama to release his files as an Illinois state legislator.

He points out instead that he's already put out his income taxes. Show us yours, he demands. Clinton says she will on or around April 15, which means they'll be at least a year old. So what's the delay? But O.K.

Now, Judicial Watch, the conservative watchdog organization that started the whole thing by suing to demand access to the slow-moving file clearance process in the Clinton presidential library, wants to see Hillary Clinton's telephone logs from her White House years.

Can you imagine writing down in the same place all day every day every phone call you make or take? So that's why the White House staff is so large.

Today in Washington a federal judge said he would allow Judicial Watch to question the National Archives about Clinton’s telephone logs. U.S. District Judge James Robertson said....

Judicial Watch could ask a representative of the Archives about how it decided to release the daily schedules before the 20,000 pages worth of telephone records.

A lawyer for the Justice Department, which represents the National Archives, which operates the Clinton Presidential Library, said there are hundreds of requests for the release of records.

“The Clinton Library now will have to answer questions under oath about how it is handling (or not handling) requests for the Clinton records," said Watch's president, Tom Fitton.

"The American people deserve to know how and why these records are not being processed and released in accordance with the law. National Archives officials should get their act together and do their job, instead of complaining of how much work they have to do,” Fitton added.

Another question that might occur to someone someday is why does anyone have to sue to ask an institution funded by taxpayer money to open the files created during taxpayer-financed public service in the first place? Seems like a make-work project for attorneys to create more files to keep secret which...

--Jill Zuckman

Jill Zuckman writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune's Washington Bureau.

Comments

[LCSusan]

Phone logs - without the content of the calls - will tell the public about as much as the schedules did - and each and every call will be open to myriad interpretations.

http://strictlyanecdotal.com/2008/03/20/hillary-clinton-was-de-facto-president-of-the-united-states.aspx