In the week since the October 30 Democratic presidential debate, numerous media outlets -- including MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, and the Los Angeles Times -- have covered the issue of whether former President Bill Clinton's papers relating to his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), will be released. Absent from most of these reports and discussions, however, was any mention of Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's handling of his mayoral papers, which were for several years in the possession of the Rudolph W. Giuliani Center for Urban Affairs, described by an October 28 Chicago Tribune article as a “private, tax-exempt foundation ... [b]illed as a leadership think tank” whose “address is the Times Square headquarters for Giuliani Partners, the mayor's consulting firm.” The Tribune reported that following an agreement reached during Giuliani's final month in office, “the center served as a conduit for Giuliani to copy and archive 2,100 boxes of documents from his time as mayor before returning the originals to the city.” The Tribune continued: “Because he moved his papers through a private organization led by his political supporters, however, the integrity of that record has been called into question.”

The Tribune reported that the agreement was made in 2001 with “the then-commissioner of the Department of Records, a Giuliani appointee and campaign fundraiser.” While the records were city property, the deal also allowed Giuliani, as the New York Daily News reported on February 2002, “far greater control over the papers than other mayors have enjoyed” because the agreement stipulated: “Whenever [Giuliani] has a personal interest or right in a document separate and apart from the interests and rights of the city, his approval shall be required before any document may be released or disclosed by the center to the public. ... Such approval ... shall be in addition to, and not in lieu of, the approval of the city.” Moreover, the “documents were moved before any index could be created, leaving the city to take his word that the papers are complete.”

Giuliani defended the deal in the face of what a February 6, 2002, New York Times article called “mounting criticism by historians and archival groups.” The Times quoted Giuliani saying, "'I'd be happy to assure them that I am not going to go in, take anything out, pick anything out." Additionally, on January 25, 2002, the Associated Press reported criticism of Giuliani's decision, including from former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, who said, “He's removed his papers so that nobody can go down there and look at them. I think that's dead wrong.” (Koch had endorsed Giuliani for election 1993 and, in 2000, according to The New York Times, “sounded like stalwart allies” with Giuliani.)

On February 15, 2002, The New York Times reported that the administration of Giuliani's successor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, made a new agreement that gave the New York City Office of the Corporation Counsel the power to determine whether a document was private and secret or public.

As the Tribune noted, in March 2003, an audit report by the city's comptroller's stated, “The integrity and trustworthiness of and the access to these documents has been called into question because of the change in their custody; the Giuliani documents were transferred out of city custody into the custody of the Giuliani Center, a private organization.” Soon after the comptroller's statement, Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a law preventing transfers of city records to “private entit[ies]”: “If the commissioner decides that it is necessary to enter into an agreement or contract with another archival establishment outside the department, to organize and prepare records for archival preservation, it may not be with a private entity as defined by this chapter, and may not be with any entity outside the city.”

According to the Tribune, as of "[l]ast December ... the last of the documents were returned to New York's Municipal Archives, where they are now available for public inspection." The Tribune also reported that New York City Department of Records and Information Services assistant commissioner Kenneth Cobb “said he's 'very confident' that the papers were returned intact, but 'I couldn't testify in court that every paper came back.' ” Yet concerns remain about the fact that they left public custody for several years. In 2005, The Village Voice quoted New York Public Interest Research Group attorney Gene Russianoff saying, “There's always going to be a cloud over these records because there was a break in the chain of custody. It is very hard to know about records that aren't there.” Similarly, the Tribune article quoted City University of New York history professor Mike Wallace saying, “There should always be an asterisk next to any citation of the Giuliani papers, saying ... 'The chain of public custody of these documents was broken.' ”

During the October 30 debate, moderator Tim Russert asked if Hillary Clinton “would ... allow the National Archives to release the documents about your communications with the president, the advice you gave, because, as you well know, President Clinton has asked the National Archives not to do anything until 2012?” Hillary Clinton responded that the “Archives is moving as rapidly as the Archives moves.” Russert also stated that, in a letter also noted by Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, Bill Clinton “specifically ask[ed] that any communication between you and the president not be made available to the public until 2012” and then asked Hillary Clinton, “Would you lift that ban?” Hillary Clinton said: "[T]hat's not my decision to make." As Media Matters for America has noted, Russert misrepresented the letter, which did not ask that such communications “not be made available” but rather listed them as one of several categories of documents to be should be "considered for withholding" [emphasis added]. However, unlike the Giuliani documents, which were archived by a private firm hired by the Giuliani Center, the Clinton documents are, as the Los Angeles Times noted on August 8, “in the custody of federal archivists.”

Following the debate, there were numerous media reports and discussions about the Clinton records issue, but few mentioned Giuliani's records controversy. One exception was Chicago Tribune managing editor Jim Warren, who on the October 31 edition of MSNBC Live noted that there was a “story that hasn't gotten much national -- hasn't gotten much national attention -- was in the Tribune. ... It involves the mayoral papers of Rudolph Giuliani and the curious chain of custody of those papers, which were in the possession of a nonprofit foundation of his, and obviously packed with friends of his, and only under duress did he return them to the city, so you could raise questions about the authenticity” of the records.

From the 1 p.m. ET hour of the October 31 edition of MSNBC Live:

ANNE E. KORNBLUT (Washington Post staff writer): Obviously no other president has, you know, has faced a question about whether his wife's paperwork from when she was first lady should be released because no other wife -- no other spouse has actually run for president. So I think this is not an issue that's going to go away for her, and although she said she's done everything and it's up to her husband, and -- she's had a lot of answers last night that didn't address the question of whether she would actually release them or not.

TAMRON HALL (MSNBC anchor): Right. And Jim, you know, we --

JIM WARREN (Chicago Tribune managing editor): And guys, if I can just -- if I can just -- if I can just add, I'm sorry, there's an --

HALL: Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. For sure. Go.

WARREN: -- interesting story that hasn't gotten much national -- hasn't gotten much national attention -- was in the Tribune, if I could be a little bit self-promotional, on Sunday by a member of our Washington bureau, Andy Zajac. It involves the mayoral papers of Rudolph Giuliani and the curious chain of custody of those papers, which were in the possession of a nonprofit foundation of his, and obviously packed with friends of his, and only under duress did he return them to the city, so you could raise questions about the authenticity --

HALL: So this can go on both sides?

WARREN: -- of some of the papers underlying -- it can go on both sides.

HALL: Yeah.

WARREN: -- and the papers underlying the tenure of Giuliani's campaign, which is basically, “I was a great mayor.”

From the October 30 presidential debate:

RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, I'd like to follow up because, in terms of your experience as first lady, in order to give the American people an opportunity to make a judgment about your experience, would you allow the National Archives to release the documents about your communications with the president, the advice you gave, because as you well know, President Clinton has asked the National Archives not to do anything until 2012?

CLINTON: Well, actually, Tim, the Archives is moving as rapidly as the Archives moves. There's about 20 million pieces of paper there, and they are moving, and they are releasing as they do their process. And I am fully in favor of that.

Now, all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care, those are already available. Others are becoming available. And I think that, you know, the Archives will continue to move as rapidly as its circumstances and processes demand.

RUSSERT: But there was a letter written by President Clinton specifically asking that any communication between you and the president not be made available to the public until 2012. Would you lift that ban?

CLINTON: Well, that's not my decision to make. And I don't believe that any president or first lady ever has. But certainly we'll move as quickly as our circumstances and the processes of the National Archives permits.