No Paper Trail for Hussein Obama

Imagine the disappointment of having a Freedom of Information Act effort, only

to find that no data exists to acquire. Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton has discovered
the anticlimax of his efforts to gain access to the state legislative records of
Barack Obama in Illinois. According to Fitton, they no longer exist, and may never
have at all:

The president of a prominent watchdog group said Wednesday that he believes

Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) “intended to leave
no paper trail” during his time in the Illinois Senate. …

In a statement, Fitton noted that his group has sought access to Obama’s records
as a state senator and questioned whether the presidential candidate has been
forthcoming with regard to what happened to those documents.

However, he said that “nobody knows where they are, if they exist at all” and
claimed that “Obama’s story keeps changing.”

This has come up before in the primary, pushed primarily by Hillary Clinton, whose
oppo research team has also discovered the same frustrating lack of records about
Obama’s work in the Illinois legislature. It could mean that Obama tried to hide his
work, hoping to keep political opponents from unearthing ammunition in future
elections. It could also mean that he didn’t do that much actual work, which would
match his wafer-thin record of accomplishments in three years as US Senator.

It’s a double-edged sword for Obama. The lack of a track record allows him
independence from prior positions, giving him the flexibility to argue whatever side
of an issue gives him an advantage. It also makes him vulnerable to having
opponents define him — or having his associations define him instead. If Obama
had a solid legislative and/or executive track record, Tony Rezko and Jeremiah
Wright wouldn’t have the impact that they do now.

It’s the cost of running as a cipher, and of running on ambiguous concepts of hope
and change. Having what little records that should exist come up missing doesn’t
help build confidence in a candidate’s credibility, either.
The president of a prominent watchdog group said Wednesday that he believes
Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) “intended to leave
no paper trail” during his time in the Illinois Senate.

Judicial Watch, which has been seeking access to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-
N.Y.) records from her time in the White House, argued Wednesday that the
Illinois senator, who has criticized the former first lady for a lack of openness,
has his own “records problem.”

“The more we learn about the Illinois Senator, the more obvious it becomes that he
is anything but the ethically upright outsider he purports to be,” said Tom Fitton,
the president of Judicial Watch.

The group rose to prominence when it repeatedly took on former President Bill
Clinton during his time in office. It also sought records from the Bush
administration regarding Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force.

In a statement, Fitton noted that his group has sought access to Obama’s records
as a state senator and questioned whether the presidential candidate has been
forthcoming with regard to what happened to those documents.

He said that “nobody knows where they are, if they exist at all” and claimed that
“Obama’s story keeps changing.”

However, the Obama campaign said the senator’s records are available.

“All of Sen. Obama’s correspondence with state agencies and records of requests
Obama made to them on behalf of his constituents are available to the public and
have been accessed by our opponents and members of the news media,” said Obama
spokesman Ben LaBolt. “Illinois State senators have limited staff – Obama did not
have a scheduler – and so no detailed record exists of all of his daily activities in
Springfield.”
Fitton argues that Obama’s public accounts of what happened to his records do not
mesh with information from the Illinois Office of the Secretary of State. He
added that the Judicial Watch investigation “suggests” that the senator could have
had his records archived in a way that would grant the public access to them.

“It appears that Obama never kept records of his time in the Illinois state
legislature, or he discarded them,” Fitton stated. “Either way, he clearly intended
to leave no paper trail.”