John Dean: George W. Bush's Presidential Library (Will Bush/Cheney destroy The People's history?)

Amid a slow, low-boiling, and mostly Texas-based controversy regarding the potential location of a future George W. Bush Presidential Library, a significant issue regarding such a future institution is being completely overlooked: Should there be federal support of the Bush Presidential Library, in light of the fact that President Bush has refused to comply with the 1978 Presidential Records Act? ..... Previously, I have written about how Bush's Executive Order 13233 gutted the 1978 presidential records law enacted in the aftermath of Watergate. The law declared that presidential papers belong to the American people, and therefore, Congress placed strictures on what any White House can and cannot do with its records. The professionals, however, doubt that the Bush and Cheney records will be anything close to complete. If so, they will have little true value.

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One person asked me, Would (a President) Hillary's Executive Order apply to Bush and Cheney, too? It seems that those associated with the presidential libraries share my belief that Cheney plans to either destroy all the papers of his that he does not want the public to see, or to walk out of the White House with his papers under his control indefinitely, and that Bush will follow his lead. Not surprisingly, this is deeply troubling to these professionals, for they know it is contrary to both the spirit and letter of the laws relating to presidential papers.
Unfortunately, even if a President Hillary were to change Executive Order 13233, the change would have no impact on Bush and Cheney, for, by the time it occurs, they will have done whatever they are doing, and when they leave, they will not yet be subject to a new order. Moreover, violations of the 1978 Presidential Records Act carry no sanctions whatsoever.

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Shortly after Bush issued his 2001 Executive Order, which turned the 1978 law upside down by reinterpreting it, a number of historians sued to enforce the 1978 law. However, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has been sitting on the case for years. Apparently, she has accepted the token compliance by the Bush White House (which produced a few of the Reagan documents that prompted the lawsuit) as justification for not addressing the legitimacy of the underlying Executive Order. At this point, unfortunately, no one expects Judge Kollar-Kotelly to do anything further in the case.
In early March 2007, Democrats in the House of Representatives (joined by a significant number of Republicans) passed a bill to preserve Presidential records in the Senate, with an overwhelming majority vote of 333 to 93. When the bill arrived in the Senate, it similarly flew through the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. However, on its way to the passage in the Senate, this bill met the fate many others passed by the House have met: Senate Republicans stopped it.

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If you think that Bush and Cheney intend to follow the law on presidential records, then you have not read the law along with Executive Order 13233, nor have you followed reports of how Cheney has all but confirmed that he is already destroying his papers. Since there are no sanctions if Bush and Cheney do as they wish with their papers - except for an outstanding restraining order preventing them from destroying backup records of emails - no doubt they will do just that.
As noted above, the lawsuit that might have forced Bush and Cheney to comply with the 1978 law and might have overturned Executive Order 13233 is comatose in Judge Kollar-Kotelly's chambers, and the House-passed legislation proved to be dead on arrival in the Senate. Given this situation, there is only one thing that yet might be done: Democrats could advise Bush that if he does not comply with the 1978 law, they will not fund his presidential library when it is turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

In 1955, Congress enacted the Presidential Libraries Act, institutionalizing a concept that FDR began: The library facilities are built with private funds, and then the library and all papers are turned over to the U.S. Government, which operates the library thought NARA. Since 1978, presidents have no choice but to turn over their papers to NARA. ..... Democratic Congressional leaders should warn Bush and Cheney that if they insist on ignoring the law, then there will be consequences: There will be no NARA funding for the administration of the George W. Bush Presidential Library. Such a warning might dampen the ardor of the Senate Republicans who are blocking efforts on Capitol Hill to overturn Bush's Executive Order 13233.
This warning could be conveyed by a resolution of either the House or Senate. It could also be conveyed by a small group of Democratic Senators, who could merely advise the President that if he does not play by the rules, then they will filibuster any effort to fund his library so long as they remain in the Senate.

Unfortunately, while George Bush understands tough talk, it seems the Democrats don't. Thus, Bush and Cheney will no doubt get away with robbing history of the truth of their presidency, just as they have robbed the public of that truth while in office.