The Hill
Friday, July 03, 2009
SEARCH
Home
HillTube
Mobile
White Papers Portal
New Member Guide
BLOGS
Pundits Blog
Congress Blog
Blog Briefing Room
Twitter Room Blog
NEWS
Leading The News
Business & Lobbying
K Street Insiders
John Breaux
John Engler
Vin Weber
Dave Wenhold
The Executive
Campaign
Obama Cabinet
COLUMNISTS
Dick Morris
A.B. Stoddard
Brent Budowsky
Ben Goddard
David Hill
David Keene
Josh Marshall
Mark Mellman
Jim Mills
Markos Moulitsas (Kos)
Cheri Jacobus
John Del Cecato
COMMENT
Editorial
Letters
Op-eds
Weyant's World
CAPITAL LIVING
Today's Stories
50 Most Beautiful 2008
Other Features
In The Know
Bookshelf
Announcements
Food & Drink
Onward and Upward
RESOURCES
Classifieds
Subscribe
Order Reprints
Aerospace
Energy Special Report
Telecom Special Report
Transport Special Report
Earth Day Special Report
Consumer Safety Report
Useful Links
RSS


Home arrow Campaign arrow Judicial Watch: Obama ‘intended to leave no paper trail’
Campaign PDF Print E-mail
Judicial Watch: Obama ‘intended to leave no paper trail’
Posted: 03/26/08 01:01 PM [ET]
The president of a prominent watchdog group said Wednesday that he believes Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) “intended to leave no paper trail” during his time in the Illinois Senate.

Judicial Watch, which has been seeking access to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) records from her time in the White House, argued Wednesday that the Illinois senator, who has criticized the former first lady for a lack of openness, has his own “records problem.”

“The more we learn about the Illinois Senator, the more obvious it becomes that he is anything but the ethically upright outsider he purports to be,” said Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch.

The group rose to prominence when it repeatedly took on former President Bill Clinton during his time in office. It also sought records from the Bush administration regarding Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force.

In a statement, Fitton noted that his group has sought access to Obama’s records as a state senator and questioned whether the presidential candidate has been forthcoming with regard to what happened to those documents.

He said that “nobody knows where they are, if they exist at all” and claimed that “Obama’s story keeps changing.”

 

However, the Obama campaign said the senator’s records are available.

“All of Sen. Obama’s correspondence with state agencies and records of requests Obama made to them on behalf of his constituents are available to the public and have been accessed by our opponents and members of the news media,” said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt. “Illinois State senators have limited staff – Obama did not have a scheduler – and so no detailed record exists of all of his daily activities in Springfield.”

Fitton argues that Obama’s public accounts of what happened to his records do not mesh with information from the Illinois Office of the Secretary of State. He added that the Judicial Watch investigation “suggests” that the senator could have had his records archived in a way that would grant the public access to them.

“It appears that Obama never kept records of his time in the Illinois state legislature, or he discarded them,” Fitton stated. “Either way, he clearly intended to leave no paper trail.”

 
 
 
BLOGS
TheHill.com Blogs Briefing Room Pundits Room Congress Blog Twitter Room
ADVERTISER
Home | Privacy Policy | Terms And Conditions
The Hill
1625 K Street, NW Suite 900
Washington, DC 20006
202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax

The contents of this site are © 2009 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.