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The Long, Complicated History Of American Political Secrecy

NPR

Published June 22, 2017 at 12:20 PM CDT

President Lyndon Johnson greets J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director (left) at the White House in Washington on June 21, 1967. (Henry Burroughs/AP)

Senate Republicans have spent weeks crafting their latest health care plan to replace the Affordable Care Act in secret

But according to historians Nathan Connolly (@ndbconnolly) and Joanne Freeman (@jbf1755), it’s hardly the first time American politics have been shaped behind closed doors.

Here & Now‘s Jeremy Hobson speaks with Connolly and Freeman, co-hosts of the podcast BackStory, which is produced at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.