Clinton chafed at GOP push to abolish Commerce

A new batch of records from former President Bill Clinton's administration shows the ex-president talking about congressional Republican plans to abolish a federal agency and White House concerns about Rwanda.

The records from 1996 show Clinton unloading on GOP lawmakers who wanted to kill the Commerce Department. Clinton suggested they wanted to get rid of the department because the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown was did a better job than corporate executives who had served.

Emails from 1994 also show difficult deliberations over Rwanda and whether to label the mass killings there genocide.

Other documents focused on the need for a more streamlined review process for veterans' health care. The records include Vice President Al Gore's aides' findings that regulations were not accomplishing the goals of providing health care to veterans and focused too much on the cost of such regulation.

Also included were documents related to vetting future Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, as well as an email requesting that the president not use Oprah Winfrey as a figure head for the National Institute for Literacy.

All the documents are released and now available at the Clinton Presidential Library website, clintonlibrary.gov.

Thousands of pages of Clinton administration records have been released as former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton considers running for president. The former first lady's new book on her State Department years will be released Tuesday.

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