No indefinite veto power over public release of Presidential records
Posted by Jacque on October 2nd, 2007
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly invalidated part of President Bush’s 2001 executive order, which allowed former presidents and vice presidents to review executive records before they are released under the Freedom of Information Act.
The ruling means that Presidents don’t have indefinite veto power over which records are made public after they’ve left office, according to an Associated Press story in the Seattle P-I.
The lawsuit was filed by the American Historical Association and other organizations, which argued that Bush’s Executive Order 13,233 was an “impermissible exercise of the executive power.”
The ruling was extremely narrow. “The court is enforcing procedural standards, but has avoided the hard questions about the role former presidents, former vice presidents, and their heirs can play when it comes to disclosure of presidential records,” said Meredith Fuchs, the counsel for The National Security Archive, a private group advocating public disclosure of government secrets. “Unless the executive order is reversed or withdrawn, decisions about the release of records from this administration may ultimately be made by the Bush daughters.”
A bill that would overturn the order passed the House in March and is pending in the Senate.
