Clinton to release schedules as 1st lady

[Jacaylbaro]

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Hillary Rodham Clinton's schedules as first lady — thousands of pages worth — are being released after months of pressure and criticism that the Clintons were delaying making them public.

 

On Tuesday, the National Archives announced it would release 11,046 pages of daily schedules of the first lady at former President Clinton's presidential library in Little Rock and online Wednesday morning. The archives operates the library.

 

Clinton has faced criticism from fellow Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republicans over the number of White House documents from her husband's administration that have not been made public.

 

The documents to be released include schedules for 2,888 days and are the files from Patti Solis Doyle, who was the former first lady's scheduling director. Doyle served as Clinton's campaign manager but stepped down in February after a series of losses to Obama in the Democratic nomination battle.

 

The archives said 4,746 pages of documents have parts blacked out, mostly to protect the privacy of third parties, including their Social Security numbers, telephone numbers, and home addresses.

 

In addition, schedules for 19 days before Bill Clinton was inaugurated and his wife began first lady on Jan. 20, 1993, are closed to the public under the Presidential Records Act.

 

The archives also said schedules for 32 days were not included in Doyle's files, but 27 of those days have now been located and will be released as soon as possible.

 

The daily schedules are the focus of a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest group, against the archives seeking the release of the former first lady's records, including phone logs and other files. Judicial Watch has also sued separately in federal court seeking the release of documents related to a White House task force on health care that Clinton headed as first lady.

 

The archives has asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit over task force records or delay the documents' release for at least a year. The archives has asked a federal judge to delay the release of her telephone logs for one to two years.

 

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On the Net:

 

Clinton Presidential Library: http://www.clintonlibrary.gov