Obama Hides State Senate Records and Other Records

Politico reports:

Obama’s Senate files became an issue after he pressed Hillary Rodham Clinton during their nomination battle to release the schedules from her eight years as first lady.

When her campaign demanded Obama release his state Senate files, he told reporters he did not “maintain a file of eight years of work in the state Senate because I didn't have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records.” The records “could have been thrown out. I haven't been in the state Senate now for quite some time," he said.

His campaign later said that "files pertinent to ongoing casework” were passed to his successor, but Obama didn’t save correspondence with the general public, state associations or lobbyists, or memos on legislation and correspondence with Illinois state agencies. Some of the records that have surfaced have done little to dampen the demand for a more complete accounting.

For instance, Obama signed a pair of 1998 letters on his state Senate stationery urging state and Chicago officials to provide taxpayer support for a housing project headed by Davis, Obama’s former law firm boss, and Rezko, who has since been convicted on federal corruption charges.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the pair reaped $855,000 in development fees from the $14.6 million project, which was entirely funded by city, state and federal tax dollars and was four blocks beyond the border of Obama's Senate district.