on a table in a room in the White House living quarters last August and put them in a box, then had realized this month that they were the records that had been subpoenaed.

Hillary became the first First Lady to have to testify to a federal grand jury. In the end she wasn't indicted in the Whitewater scandal, in part quite obviously because of the unlikelihood that an overwhelmingly Democratic jury in the District of Columbia would ever convict her. What difference does it make? Someone who so obviously lied to escape criminal jeopardy would drive confidence in the fairness and honesty even lower than Obama has and a society in which the leaders are held in such disregard is a vastly weaker one in every respect.

At thetime David Maraniss and Susan Schmidt wrote a detailed account of the controversy and had this to say about the missing/late found records and Hillary's treatment of them

How a public figure reacts to a controversy can be as important as what happened in the first place. [snip] From the beginning of the Whitewater controversy, Hillary Clinton has maintained a public posture seemingly at odds with her actions. She was reluctant to release records during the 1992 campaign. She fought David Gergen's recommendation to turn over all the records in 1993. She led White House opposition to the appointment of a special counsel in early 1994. There appears to be a four-year pattern of Hillary Clinton avoiding full disclosure, occasionally forgetting places and events that might embarrass her, and