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| The Dean-Files |
| 2003-12-01 |
| Hat tip LGF As investigative reporters and âoppoâ researchers flock to Vermont to dig into Howard Deanâs past, they have run into a roadblock. A large chunk of Deanâs records as governor are locked in a remote state warehouseâthe result of an aggressive legal strategy designed in part to protect Dean from political attacks. "Heâs a Dem! He should be immune to criticism!" DEANâWHO HAS BLASTED the Bush administration for excessive secrecyâcandidly acknowledged that politics was a major reason for locking up his own files when he left office last January. He told Vermont Public Radio he was putting a 10-year seal on many of his official papersâfour years longer than previous Vermont governorsâbecause of âfuture political considerations... We didnât want anything embarrassing appearing in the papers at a critical time.â âMost of the records are open,â said Dean spokeswoman Tricia Enright, adding there is âabsolutely notâ a âsmoking gunâ in those for which Dean has claimed âexecutive privilege.â Still, Deanâs efforts to keep official papers secret appear unusually extensive. Late last year, NEWSWEEK has learned, Deanâs chief counsel sent a directive to all state agencies ordering them to cull their files and remove all correspondence that bore Deanâs nameâand ship them to the governorâs office to be reviewed for âprivilegeâ claims. This removed a âsignificant number of recordsâ from state files, said Michael McShane, an assistant Vermont attorney general. The battle over Deanâs records began last year when three Vermont newspapers took him to court after being denied access to his official schedule. Reporters were trying to track Deanâs out-of-state political trips. State lawyers argued that release of the schedule could jeopardize his safety and that the governorâs office was not a public âagencyâ covered by state open-records lawâtwo notions rejected by the Vermont Supreme Court. (The court ultimately ruled that those portions of the schedule related to his political trips had to be released, but those relating to state policy could be redacted.) Then last January, Deanâs chief counsel David Rocchio negotiated a sweeping agreement that resulted in about 140 boxes of Dean records containing several hundred thousand pages of documents being locked up for 10 years at a state archive in Middlesex, said Greg Sanford, the state archivist. The sealed papers include Deanâs correspondence with advisers on, among other matters, Vermontâs âcivil unionsâ law and a state agency that critics charged was used to grant tax credits to Deanâs favored firms. Rocchio said the sealing agreement was driven by âlegitimateâ policy concerns, but also by, he later acknowledged, political factors. âAll you have to do is look at what [Deanâs opponents] are doing with the existing records,â he said. âTheyâre distorting his record.â "But Bush is a Republican, so we have a duty to distort his record and make him look bad." |
| Posted by:Atrus |