Before jumping onto the campaign trail, Mitt Romney did a massive house cleaning, replacing computers and internet servers, selling hard drives to select staff members, and getting permission to destroy 150 boxes of government records from his time as governor of Massachusetts. All of this was legal, which Romney has emphasized, but it raises questions about what information will remain out of public's reach and why. Romney said the hard drives, which 11 staffers bought from the office for $65 a piece in 2006 could have contained information about "medical records, resumes from people who have applied for jobs, judicial appointments made, and people applying for those positions." Paper documents contained records on criminal pardons and commutations, Reuters reported Thursday. And Romney administration e-mails are gone thanks to a state 1997 state court ruling that made gubernatorial records exempt from a public records law that would otherwise prevent Romney from wiping them out. The purge could protect him from further accusations of flip-flopping, particularly on the subject of healthcare reform, which has been a controversial issue within his party.
