National Archives Clinton Library to Open Kagan Records
Press Release · Thursday, June 3, 2010

Washington, DC

The William Clinton Presidential Library will open records relating to U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s tenure at the White House Domestic Policy Council and the White House Counsel’s Office. The release of papers from the approximately 160,000 pages of material will be made available on the Clinton Library web site [www.clintonlibrary.gov] in batches as soon as the records are processed. Release dates and times will be posted on the National Archives Twitter site [http://twitter.com/archivesnews] and the National Archives home page [http://www.archives.gov/].

Background

The Clinton Presidential Library is one of 13 Presidential libraries administered by the National Archives. The requirements for review and release of Presidential records are established by the Presidential Records Act of 1978 (PRA) and the notification procedures of EO 13489 (under which representatives of both the former and the incumbent Presidents have an opportunity to review the records in order to consider if any of them may be subject to a constitutionally-based privilege). Presidential records are reviewed for applicable PRA and FOIA exemptions. This labor-intensive and time-consuming process requires that National Archives staff conduct a page by page review of all records.

Presidential records withdrawn under the PRA restrictions remain closed for a period of twelve years following the end of the former president’s administration. Most of the documents closed under the restrictions of the PRA and the FOIA relate to confidential advice between the President and his advisors or between such advisors, or information regarded as a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Items removed from a collection are listed on withdrawal sheets placed in the open file, which cite the PRA and/or FOIA restrictions that were applied.

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