The White House is casting doubt on a recent claim by President Clinton that the release of historical records from his administration has been “slowed down” by aides to President Bush.

“The White House is not currently reviewing any Clinton presidential records because none are ripe for White House review,” a spokesman for Mr. Bush, Trey Bohn, said yesterday. “All current requests for Clinton administration records are pending review by President Clinton’s designated representative. The White House can take no action on any of the requests until the Clinton representative has completed its review of the records relevant to each request and reached a decision on either authorizing their release or withholding them.”

At a press conference last month, Mr. Clinton complained that his efforts to make public the full history of his presidency were being frustrated by Mr. Bush’s aides. “I’m basically pro-disclosure. I want to open my presidential records more rapidly than the law requires, and the current administration has slowed down the opening of my own records,” he said.

A longtime adviser to Mr. Clinton who serves as his representative for the records process, Bruce Lindsey, did not return a message left at his Little Rock, Ark., office yesterday. A spokesman at Mr. Clinton’s Harlem office also did not respond to email and phone messages seeking comment on the White House statement.

Officials at the National Archives said last week that archivists have finished work on more than 50 Freedom of Information Act requests for records at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock but that the records were in a process where the former president and current president can review them for information that may be subject to executive privilege or other restrictions.

About 26,000 pages of records are awaiting a response by Mr. Clinton’s aides, according to the Associated Press.

The release of some of the records, particularly those relating to Senator Clinton’s tenure as first lady, could have an impact on her presidential campaign. In July, a conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, filed a lawsuit demanding action on the group’s request for access to Mrs. Clinton’s schedules and phone logs.

Any foot-dragging at this stage by Mr. Clinton or his aides would be at odds with promises of openness made after he left office. According to the Washington Post, Mr. Lindsey complained to Bush administration officials in 2001 that a proposed executive order would diminish public access to records of former presidents. Mr. Bush issued the order with minor changes, but a federal judge recently invalidated a portion of it that allowed the record review process to go on indefinitely.

In 2003, Mr. Clinton announced that he planned to make public most of the confidential advice he received, even though federal law allows such advice to be kept secret for 12 years after a president leaves office.

When the Clinton Library opened in 2004, thousands of pages were available for review sooner than the law required. More than half a million pages selected by Mr. Clinton and archivists are currently open to research.

However, hardly any documents have been released in response to records requests from the public, which the library began accepting in January 2006. Archives officials have indicated that the presidential review process for all Clinton White House records released so far has averaged eight months. A spokeswoman for the archives, Miriam Kleiman, declined to discuss whether aides to Messrs. Clinton or Bush have been responsible for the delays.

“The National Archives is not in a position to determine where the hold-up is,” Ms. Kleiman said. “The only information we can provide is that they are in the pipeline.”

The Bush White House’s claim that it is not responsible for any backlog of Clinton-era records awaiting release was first reported last week in an Associated Press dispatch that was not widely circulated outside Arkansas.