Besides the illegal immigrant driver’s license controversy, Hillary Clinton’s biggest stumbling point during last week’s debate involved communications between her husband regarding health care. Senator Clinton’s defense is "that’s not my decision to make."
Documents uncovered by "Newsweek," however, revealed that in 1994, President Clinton named his wife along with his adviser Bruce Lindsey in charge of the former president’s papers. Senator Clinton’s spokesman said "we don’t control their process. We’re not holding anything up."
Senator Clinton also claimed that "all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care, those are already available." However, "Newsweek" also reports that most records relating to the health care task force have not been released.
All of the networks, and CNN have thus far ignored the story. However, "Fox and Friends" discussed the story on the November 5 edition. The transcript of the discussion is below.
GRETCHEN CARLSON: Alright, so over the weekend, actually during the debate last week, the Democratic debate, there was some talk about Hillary Clinton's documents. And these that go back years and years from when her husband was president and when she was first lady, and why they have not been released. Well, now there's a "Newsweek" article that says there are more than 3 million documents just on healthcare alone I believe.
STEVE DOOCY: Yeah, which is puzzling because they said over the weekend "yeah we've released all this stuff about healthcare." Not so fast. There are three more, 3 million more outstanding documents, and when Hillary Clinton said when she was queried at the debate, you know, "why don't you release all of these documents from your husband's administration so we can see what you were up to?" She said, "well, it's not my decision to make." Not so fast, says "Newsweek" magazine. Back in 1994, President Clinton designated his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and his advisor Bruce Lindsay as co-representatives for control of his presidential papers. So technically, Hillary actually can release all of those documents all by herself.
BRIAN KILMEADE: And there's a lot going on because the more you understand and the more you read, you understand that Senator Hillary Clinton, now a Senator, then the first lady, was much more than a ceremonial first lady. She was very active in so many decisions. And she's also saying that "I was a co-" basically saying "vote for me I've been in the White House before." So if you've made all these decisions, let's see what led up to that. But they said "let's keep those papers under lock and key until 2012." And Tim Russert brought it up, Barack Obama and John Edwards said "yeah why don't you release the documents?" They were talking about all week, so she just got 13 thousand out, and 2.7 million to go.
CARLSON: Is that it?
KILMEADE: Yeah, so just a few million more and we'll all be up to date. But so far, "Newsweek," that same magazine Steve, did a poll after the debate in which she struggled so mightedly. And she still has the same size national lead as she did before over Barack Obama, 44 to 22.
CARLSON: It's interesting. I think that's very interesting because what that might say is that people have already made up their minds to a certain degree, no matter what she says.
DOOCY: And if you're wondering what's taking so long to release these documents, according to one of Clinton's spokespeople, a fellow by the name of Jake Carson, he says that her hands are tied because they're going as fast as they can at the presidential archives and they got to go about processing each and every Freedom of Information Act request one at a time. So, they just don't have enough time. They're going as fast as they can.
