Then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney spent almost $100,000 in taxpayer funds to replace computers when he left office “as part of an unprecedented effort to keep his records secret,” Reuters reports. As ThinkProgress has previously noted, Romney led an obfuscation campaign that state officials described as “unheard of.” Staffers deleted emails, purchased official hard drives, and otherwise obliterating digital records of Romney’s time in office.

As the presidential candidate himself explained, these efforts were designed to prevent “the opposition research team” from accessing what should be public records.

Now, according to Reuters, Romney used state funds to carry out this political activity:

The cleanup of records by Romney’s staff before his term ended included spending $205,000 for a three-year lease on new computers for the governor’s office, according to official documents and state officials.

In signing the lease, Romney aides broke an earlier three-year lease that provided the same number of computers for about half the cost – $108,000. Lease documents obtained by Reuters under the state’s freedom of information law indicate that the broken lease still had 18 months to run.

As a result of the change in leases, the cost to the state for computers in the governor’s office was an additional $97,000.

Unfortunately for Romney, the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office announced today that it will allow public access to hundreds of previously off-limits boxes of official records from the former governor’s time in office. Romney has argued that while the law required him to turn over those paper documents to the state archives, they should be kept off limits from the public.

Last week, a Boston Globe investigation uncovered that former Gov. Mitt Romney’s administration destroyed emails, purchased hard drives, and otherwise obliterated all digital records of his time as governor of Massachusetts. This happened as Romney was leaving the state to campaign for president (the first time), and observers immediately speculated that the systematic destruction was politically motivated to hide embarrassing data.

Romney and his campaign have so far denied this, with the candidate saying this weekend in New Hampshire that his staff took the highly unusual step of purchasing their work hard drives because they might contain “confidential and private” information. Meanwhile, he’s made calls for greater White House transparency a part of his campaign message.

But in a fairly stunning admission today during an interview with the editorial board of the Nashua Telegraph in New Hampshire, Romney suggested that his administration deleted emails because they didn’t want “opposition research teams” to have access to them:

ROMNEY: Well, I think in government we should follow the law. And there has never been an administration that has provided to the opposition research team, or to the public, electronic communications. So ours would have been the first.

Watch it:

While Romney’s claim that no previous administration had kept emails may be true, that’s hardly a strong precedent given that emailing was not commonplace for very many years before Romney took office.

Meanwhile, Romney clearly broke precedent with the hard drive buybacks, as staffers for previous administration called the purchases “unheard of.” Terry Dolan, who worked in six previous administrations in the state, told the Globe, “That had not happened prior to the end of the Romney administration.” “I don’t remember anybody buying their hard drives. I don’t remember anybody buying anything,’’ said Stephen Crosby, who worked for Romney’s two predecessors.

At 3:00 a.m. this morning, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature passed Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) budget, which makes draconian cuts to education and social services, and ends tax breaks for low- and middle-income households.

The late-night vote, which came after 13 hours of debate, flies directly in the face of a commitment Walker made on the campaign trail, when he promised to end late-night votes because “nothing good happens after midnight”:

He promised to sign legislation if elected governor that prohibits the Legislature from voting after 10 p.m. or before 9 a.m. “I have two teenagers and I tell them that nothing good happens after midnight. That’s even more true in politics,” he said in a statement. “The people of Wisconsin deserve to know what their elected leaders are voting on.”

Walker and the GOP legislature had already violated the pledge in March when the Assembly passed at 1:17 a.m. the governor’s infamous budget repair bill, which stripped public employees of their collective bargaining rights.

The state GOP has been rushing to pass as much legislation as possible because they fear losing control of the Legislature after a slew of upcoming recall elections targeting Republicans in the state Senate, as the New York Times recently reported.

In 2009, Ohio Republican Rep. Steve Chabot took time to list several Democratic “outrages” on his blog, prompting readers to choose which was the worst. One of the political cardinal sins: A lack of transparency. Pointing to President Obama’s campaign promise of transparency, Chabot railed against Obama for closing off the public from attending an event and proceeded to mock the administration’s reasoning for the move:

Candidate Obama, and then newly-elected-President Obama promised that his Administration would be “the most transparent ever.” Then, a few days ago, they held a workshop on “government openness” – and you guessed it, it was closed to the public! That’s hardly the image of openness and transparency the Obama Administration wants to project. Realizing how bad they looked, they scrambled for an excuse and came up with “we needed to make sure there would be room for all the government employees attending.” Right.

But now it’s 2011. Thus, it seems Chabot’s principles are two years past their expiration date. Last night, Chabot hosted a town hall event in Cincinnati, Ohio that was open to the public. However, any reporters and constituents attending the event were greeted by this transparent sign of non-transparency. Via Americans United for Change:

Unless Chabot decided to leak sensitive intelligence information to his constituents, it is hard to see how a camera could pose any kind of security risk at an event that is already open to the public. However, Chabot’s reversal on transparency is hardly surprising given the severe backlash House Republicans are facing over support for their plan to end Medicare. Indeed, several House Republicans have banned recording devices to prevent broadcast of the blowback.

One of the key promises House Republicans made in the 2010 campaign was “to make Congress more transparent.” Given Chabot’s particular “outrage” over broken campaign promises, this is hardly the image of openness and transparency he likely wants to project.

ThinkProgress filed this report from Grand Rapids, MI.

As the backlash against the GOP’s plan to end Medicare grows, so does the attempt to block reporters from covering it. As ThinkProgress has reported, several Republicans are clamping down on citizen journalists at their events. But this weekend, the Tea Party of West Michigan took this to the next level.

At the Prince Conference Center at Calvin College in Grand Rapids Saturday evening, the Tea Party group hosted a fireside chat with Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) for Tea Party supporters. The event was not open to the public, though numerous senior citizens were told the event was a town hall and were turned away at the door. A few seniors gathered outside on the sidewalk to discuss the various issues they had hoped to discuss with Amash, including their disapproval of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Medicare privatization plan. While seniors spoke with ThinkProgress and a reporter from the Michigan Messenger, organizers from the Tea Party group called campus security, summoning eight officers to force six seniors and two reporters off the premises.

According to security, the people who called them said the seniors had thrown things at the Tea Party organizers. Watch it:

According to multiple members inside, no objects were ever thrown. When asked, the conference center staff said they did not call security — indicating that the Tea Party asked security to move the constituents away from the building.

For an organization that’s campaigned for greater transparency from government officials, these actions seem to be anathema to its principles. Indeed, Tea Party organizer Lisa Dupont told the Michigan Messenger’s Sam Inglot that they intentionally blocked media from the event. “That’s our choice,” Dupont said. “We just wanted it to be laid back and comfortable, we’re asking the questions.” She then said she’d ask Amash if he minded. When Amash arrived, he demurred, saying “this is not an appropriate venue” and that this “happens all the time, whether I mind it or not.”

Attendees at the event, however, told ThinkProgress they were surprised reporters were not allowed in. One attendee went back inside to inform Amash that reporters were waiting in the lobby. However, according to Tea Party member Paul Meyer, the organization appointed him to keep reporters out, even after the event was over as we were considered a “security issue.”

After further questioning, security was summoned for a second time. According to the guards, the call again came from Tea Party organizers.

When leaving the event, one attendee stopped to tell ThinkProgress how Amash was a politician of principle. In singing his praises, she told ThinkProgress that “he is a big proponent of transparency.”

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), the leader of the House Republicans, tasked Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) as the party’s chief liaison to corporate lobbyists in early 2009 in preparation for the 2010 elections. Walden carefully courted business leaders by holding a series of meetings with trade associations and lobbyists to help shake the K Street “money tree” to support Republican candidates. After Republicans captured the House, Boehner appointed Walden to lead the Republican Office of Transition — which began meeting the day after the election, November 3.

The GOP Transition Office has widely publicized itself as a mechanism for guiding a “smooth and transparent transition into Republican majority.” Announcing the Transition Office, Walden said he would make Congress “more transparent, cost-efficient, and accountable to the people.” Just this morning, Roll Call published a story with the headline, “Walden: GOP Transition Focusing on Transparency.”

Given Walden’s promise of accountability and transparency, ThinkProgress traveled to the Transition Office today to request documents disclosing who has been attending the transition meetings, what ethics rules have been governing the meetings, and how things are actually being run differently. After asking Walden for a list of the transition meeting participants, he ducked back into the office. Later, a Republican staffer emerged to hand us a press release and a copy of a newspaper article about Walden’s leadership. None of the documents provided to ThinkProgress were actually official disclosures:

TP: Are there going to be any new ethics rules?

STAFFER: You are going to have to ask members of the committee that.

TP: Are lobbyists going to be allowed in these meetings?

STAFFER: You’ll have to ask members of the committee.

Watch it:

ThinkProgress witnessed dozens of men and women, none of them members of Congress, walk in and out of the room. Simply listing the members of Congress on the transition committee is nothing new. Since Republican transition meetings have been occurring since November 3, the public still does not know what has been discussed, which staffers or lobbyists have been involved, or if there are any actual new ethics rules.