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Obama rescinds Bush order on presidential records
As expected, President Barack Obama moved quickly to rescind a George W. Bush executive order that gave presidential heirs the right to block release of White House records.
In a Wednesday executive order, Obama revoked a Nov. 1, 2001 Bush executive order that gave ex-presidents and their heirs unprecedented control over the release of White House records.
Obama’s order sets up a new process for handling ex-presidents’ executive privilege claims to block release of records. For living ex-presidents, the order says the nation’s archivist will consult with the attorney general and the counsel to the president. The order gives heirs of dead presidents no right to try to block release of White House records.
Until the Watergate reform era in the 1970s, White House records generally were considered the property of presidents and ex-presidents. That changed with the 1978 Presidential Records Act which made the records government property and established procedures for public release.
Under the law, presidents generally can restrict access to some types of White House records for 12 years after they leave office. Exemptions for national security and privacy can be claimed beyond the 12-year period. The law made President Ronald Reagan’s records the first to be covered by the new procedures.
When Bush took office in 2001, the 12-year restriction that Reagan had put on some of his records — some of which related to the current president’s father as vice president — expired. Bush instructed the national archivist to withhold their release for 180 days to allow the administration to “review the many constitutional and legal questions raised by potential release of sensitive and confidential presidential records.”
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