Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Getting the band back together: A presidential records roundup

Here are a few news items that hit my Google News feed over the weekend about presidential records...

Bush to host policy institute strategy session in Dallas
Dallas Morning News - Apr 11, 2009

Former President George W. Bush will host a strategy session in Dallas next week, where top aides from his White House will shape plans for the policy institute at his presidential library at SMU.

The reunion, which is the first of several informal sessions, will include dinner at the Bush home in Preston Hollow on Monday night, followed by a series of strategy meetings Tuesday.

Those attending include former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and advisers Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett. Vice President Dick Cheney will not be there and it was unclear whether former deputy chief of staff Karl Rove would attend...

National Archives to Release Reagan and Bush 41 Presidential Records
PR Newswire (press release) - Apr 10, 2009

Acting Archivist of the United States Adrienne Thomas announced today that 245,763 pages of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush Presidential records will be opened for research on Monday, April 13, 2009, at their respective libraries. These records, which were still pending with the George W. Bush Administration as of January 20, 2009, today cleared the review process established by President Barack Obama under Executive Order 13489...

...On Monday, April 13, 2009, the Ronald Reagan library will open 244,966 pages of records processed in response to hundreds of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. These records include the Presidential Briefing Papers collection, Office of Speechwriting research material and approximately 13,000 pages of declassified records on numerous foreign policy topics. To date, more than ten million pages of Presidential records have been processed at the Reagan library...

Saudi records out at Bush (41) Library
Josh Gerstein's Blog - Politico - Washington, DC - Apr 13, 2009

Monday morning, the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, released about 800 pages of old White House records having to do with relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

There are no plans to have the records up on the Web anytime soon, I'm told. However, the National Archives, which runs the library, does have an official archivists' description of the files. I've posted that below...

Bush won't give deposition in lawsuit against SMU
Dallas Morning News - Apr 9, 2009

Former President George W. Bush won't agree to give a deposition in the long-running lawsuit against SMU, despite urging from a judge for the attorneys involved to reach an agreement about how his statement would be taken.

This week, Bush's lawyer gave notice that the former president is not willing to give a sworn statement in the case. That puts the issue back into the lap of state district Judge Martin Hoffman, who will rule on the matter on April 17...

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