Papers Show First Lady Away at Key Foreign Policy Moments

As historians and political strategists pore over newly released documents from Hillary Clinton’s years in the White House, the Guardian jumps in with a first look at whether she was present when big foreign policy decisions were reached. Clinton has made her role in the administration a central peg of her candidacy, a claim the paper speculates could be undermined by the schedule.

For instance, when the Good Friday agreements between factions in Northern Ireland were being finalized—a deal in which Hillary claims to have had a hand—the first lady was away. When Bill Clinton dropped US missiles on Serbia, as part of a NATO strike, she was touring ruins in Egypt. The conservative group that fought for the records’ release from the Clinton Library expected no “smoking gun” in the papers, says its leader—especially since a Clinton lawyer had “enormous discretion” in what was redacted. (More Hillary Clinton stories.)