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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (251227)	4/26/2002 9:50:23 AM
From: bonnuss_in_austin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

WHITE HOUSE STONEWALL A Daily Review of the White House's Attempts to Keep America From Learning Their Secrets DAY 62 Thursday, April 25, 2002 The White House Stonewall goes on, as the Bush administration continues to deny the non-partisan General Accounting Office's request for information on who the White House Energy Task Force met with while formulating national energy policy. For the first time in history, the GAO has sued the executive branch for access to the records. It has been 62 days since the GAO filed their suit against the Bush administration and 353 days since the White House first received the GAO request. Why is the White House going to such lengths? What are they trying to hide? The Latest News on the White House Stonewall House GOP Challenges Bush's Policy of Secrecy and Stonewalling.* The Hill newspaper reported that the Republican members of the House Government Reform Committee are going to introduce legislation that will reverse a 6-month old executive order by Bush that blocked the release of 68,000 pages of confidential communications from the Reagan administration. This legislation would reestablish the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which required all presidential records to be accessible to the public 12 years after the end of the administration. "If successful, their efforts would reestablish the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which called for a president's records to enter the public domain 12 years after the end of that administration. Those who would be impacted by the legislation include Mitch Daniels, director of the Office of Management and Budget who was the White House political director under Reagan. In addition, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell, among others, were top advisors to President George H.W. Bush. The action would be the latest volley in a growing dispute between lawmakers on the panel and the Bush administration over the thorny issue of executive privilege, a dispute that has centered on the records of past administrations but nevertheless could prove politically damaging to the president* The bill, which has been introduced by Rep. Steve Horn (R-Calif.), the chairman of the subcommittee and a former university president, is expected to be marked up and passed out of committee soon* Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), Horn and Reps. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio), Doug Ose (R-Calif.), Ben Gilman (R-N.Y.) and Chris Shays (R-Conn.) have joined 21 Democrats in challenging the administration, a move that may reveal Burton's growing frustration with a White House that has draped a wide cloak of secrecy on its recordsThe current battle over the Reagan White House records may have an impact on the future of the administration if Bush is reelected. Under the law, records from his father's administration are due for release in two years when the younger Bush would begin his second term Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, downplayed the possibility that the White House is hiding skeletons from prior administrations. 'It's much more of an issue that this administration jealously guards presidential prerogatives,' said Wittmann. It's part of a pattern of an administration that doesn't like to give out information it doesn't have to,' Wittmann added. 'They're also scrupulous about avoiding precedents that could come back to haunt them.'* 'The Bush executive order turns the Presidential Records Act on its head,' said Karen Lightfoot, Waxman's spokeswoman. 'It is another example of the Bush administration undermining the public's right to know.' " Link to Story: thehill.com