
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 28, 1995                   TAG: 9502280105
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

BUSH LOSES IN RULING ON RECORDS

A federal judge Monday declared ``null and void'' a controversial agreement signed in the waning hours of the Bush administration that gave the former president broad legal control of computerized records of his presidency.

U.S. District Judge Charles R. Richey ruled that the agreement between George Bush and then-Archivist Don W. Wilson on Jan. 19, 1993, circumvented the Presidential Records Act, abolishing presidential ownership of White House records, which was passed after Watergate and the fight over former President Richard Nixon's documents and tapes.

``Indeed, to hold otherwise would be to find that an agreement between the president and certain officials of the executive branch, signed on the last day of an administration, may supersede an act of Congress; such a notion, of course, is insupportable,'' Richey wrote in a 51-page opinion. ``No one - not even a president - is above the law.''

Richey called the agreement made by Wilson - who added to the controversy by becoming director of the George Bush Center at Texas A&M University - ``arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law.''

The Clinton administration defended the agreement in court.

The judge ordered acting Archivist Trudy H. Peterson to comply with the Presidential Records Act, which regulates presidential records during and after a president's term of office. Under it, most records become available to the public no later than five years after the archivist gets custody of them. Before leaving office, however, a president can impose restrictions on some sensitive documents for up to 12 years.

by CNB