Steve Diamond Makes News
We noted yesterday that Steve Diamond, who has been leading the charge on the Obama/Ayers/Chicago Annenberg Challenge story, had received documents indicating that Ken Rolling, an Obama associate and former Executive Director of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, had attempted to prevent disclosure of some of the files.
Today the Chicago Tribune picks up the story, assuring us that Ken Rolling's requests were denied:
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge turned over all of its documents to be archived in the Richard J. Daley Library at the university in 2001, but last month university officials balked when it received a request from National Review magazine reporter Stanley Kurtz to review the files. The university initially said it temporarily blocked that request in order to do an inquiry into the circumstances of the gift of the records.
...U. of I. spokesman Thomas Hardy confirmed that the university first closed the document collection after being contacted Aug. 11 by Rolling.
Rolling subsequently asked the university not to release several of the charity's files, including records outlining its search for an executive director. In an Aug. 23 e-mail, Rolling said he was concerned about the "confidential nature of some documents" in the grant files.
But university officials said that despite the request by Rolling, none of the documents were withheld when the university reopened the documents to public inspection Aug. 26.
"Absolutely, unequivocally not," said UIC lawyer Thomas Bearrows when asked whether the university had bowed to any of Rolling's requests.
According to minutes from a December 2001 charity board meeting reviewed by the Tribune, board members agreed to turn the files over to UIC with the understanding they could oversee access for up to five years.
Bearrows said it was his review of those board minutes that led to the university's decision to open the collection.
That actually sounds plausible - I can understand the library wanting to pause and assure themselves of their legal footing before wading into controversy. Steve Diamond gets props at the end:
The discussions between Rolling and university officials had been sought by Jason Wilcox, 26, a law student at the University of Chicago, and they became public when he provided the information on Saturday to a California law professor, Stephen Diamond, who has been blogging about the controversy.
A spokesman for the Obama campaign said Monday that it had never had any discussions with university officials about the Annenberg collection.
I love that "denial" from the Obama campaign - they "never had any discussions with university officials about the Annenberg collection". Fine, but did anyone from the campaign talk to Ken Rolling or (LOL) Bill Ayers? Seems like an obvious follow-up, so let's fault the Trib for not asking (or for not printing the response).
And let's toss in a timeline question - Kurtz went public with the library's evasions on August 18. By his account Mr. Kurtz had been in discussions with the library and had made an appointment to view the documents prior to the 18th.
So why did Mr. Rolling contact the library on the 11th? Was his spider sense tingling? Or did someone at the library mention to him that the Annenberg Challenge files were in play? One might think that the library spokesperson could address the question of whether someone from the library contacted Mr. Rolling, thereby precipitating his call.
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2008/09/steve-diamond-m.html
