This really deserves more attention.

Under the Presidential Records Act passed in 1978 a large body of official presidential papers (screened, of course, for national security purposes) are released twelve years after the president leaves office. In January 2001 about 68,000 documents from Ronald Reagan's presidency were slated to be released.

However, the White House Counsel's Office has just delayed the release of those documents for a second time. The first delay came in January and was set to last until June 21. They have now requested a second delay until the end of August to continue reviewing the documents.

The Counsel's office does have discretion under the law to force these delays.
But they have an obvious conflict of interest.

Many of the Reagan administration officials whose memos and papers are set to be released now have senior jobs in the Bush administration: Larry Lindsey, Mitch Daniels, Gale Norton, and others. It's not clear what those documents reveal -- presumably nothing scandalous, just embarrassing. It seems pretty clear that the release of these documents is being delayed to avoid such scrutiny or embarrassment.

The White House has authority to delay the release of presidential records documents for important reasons like national security, not to prevent embarrassing revelations or bad media days for current Bush administration officials.

That's, by definition, an abuse of power. Not a big one, I grant you, but an abuse nonetheless.