If the 2016 election has given you an unnerving sense of 1990s déjà vu, this is going to make it worse. On Tuesday, with Hillary Clinton sidelined with pneumonia and Republicans demanding her health records, Bill Clinton is flying out to Los Angeles to headline some fundraisers for his wife's presidential campaign. Two decades ago — on Sept. 12, 1996 — President Bill Clinton was on a 24-hour fundraising trip through California for his own re-election bid, and, according to the Los Angeles Times, "White House officials scrambled to deal with questions about why they will not release the president's full medical records." The article, headlined "Questions on Health Records Dog Clinton" and unearthed on Monday by L.A. Times reporter Matt Pearce, gets even eerier:
At campaign stops over the last several weeks, Republican officials have repeatedly raised the issue of Clinton's health — often hinting without substantiation that Clinton suffers from some embarrassing medical condition.... The medical records question has dogged Clinton since the 1992 campaign. Then, as now, Clinton has authorized the release of only partial information about his medical condition. White House spokesmen and his physician have issued statements that he enjoys overall good health but have not provided detailed data from his annual medical exams. [L.A. Times]
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