Geld8217; file fails to see light

8220;The government has never assured SLOC that it is not a target of the investigation,8221; said Beth Wilkinson, a Los Angeles lawyer hired by the organising committee after it was revealed bid executives had plied members of the International Olympic Committee with 1.2 million in inducements.

Wilkinson, a former federal prosecutor, said the justice department might be using the Geld8217; file to surprise or test the truthfulness of interview subjects.

But SLOC President Mitt Romney, clearly tiring of the dragging scandal and a deluge of media requests for bid records, said he preferred to 8220;just get it out and suffer the slings and arrows.8221;

8220;I overwhelmingly want to release all of the information that relates to the conduct of the bid. I want to get that stuff out of here,8221; Romney said.

His board disagreed, voting 12-5 to keep the geld8217; file under wraps.

Olympic trustees also voted 13-3 against publicly disclosing details about the amounts spent by SLOC on a battery of lawyers to defend or represent the committee, some of its officers and executives in the Olympic scandal.

Romney, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and Ken Bullock, director of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, were among the few trustees voting in favour of disclosure in both cases.

The board8217;s refusal was the second time in three months trustees followed the advice of lawyers and refused to turn over documents to news agencies and TV stations under a new open-records policy.

Trustees also refused to make public a list of documents subpoenaed by the justice department. On Tuesday, Romney planned to advance a compromise motion, delaying the release of the geld8217; file for 60 days and giving the justice department advance notice of the release. Noting the investigation has dragged on for 15 months, Romney said the geld8217; file might have already served its purpose.

But after closing their board meeting for 45 minutes, trustees emerged to vote against releasing the document under any condition.

The vote came after trustees heard a lawyer for one TV station and editors of two newspapers argue there was no sign SLOC itself was a target and that the committee had no obligation to aid a criminal investigation of others.