Posted on 12/23/2003 2:30:56 PM PST by Leroy S. Mort
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - The state of Vermont will fight efforts to force open the gubernatorial records of Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, Attorney General William Sorrell said Tuesday.
The attorney general's office planned to respond late Tuesday to a lawsuit filed by the Washington-based Judicial Watch seeking to unseal the documents, which Dean's rivals for the Democratic nomination for president have used to criticize Dean's calls for openness in government.
``We think we've got a strong case here,'' said Sorrell, an aide to Dean when he was governor. ``The Vermont Supreme Court has repeatedly acknowledged the validity of executive privilege.''
At issue are 145 boxes of papers that Dean ordered sealed for 10 years when he left office in January. He also gave the state 190 boxes that were available to the public immediately.
Two of Dean's predecessors used executive privilege to seal roughly the same percentage of their documents, but not for as long.
Other candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination have been pushing the sealed records as an issue. Joe Lieberman said earlier this month that closing the records did not fit with Dean's efforts to present himself as a straight talker. ``That's not the way to build public trust - especially after three years of secret-keeping and information-blocking by George W. Bush,'' Lieberman said.
Dean has said he would let the courts decide which documents to release. But the lawsuit makes it unlikely that will happen because the state will ask the judge to dismiss the suit and uphold the right to seal the documents.
Sorrell said Vermont governors routinely seal some documents when they leave office.
``We have a long bipartisan history of Republicans and Democrats alike having a portion of their records sealed for a number of years after they leave office,'' Sorrell said.
Dean doesn't control all the records, said Sorrell, who was appointed to the post by Dean and later elected. ``If Howard Dean were to say tomorrow 'I'd like to see them opened,' that's not to say they'd all be opened.''
The documents would still need to be reviewed and documents such as medical records removed, he said.
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