Oaks says in several places that these documents were not suppressed at all. Read his reasons/excuses for WHY the documents hadn't been made public yet (6 Aug 1987). Here's a great nugget from the talk:
During this same month of January 1986, the Church turned all of its Hofmann-acquired documents over to the prosecutors, at their request. As a result, the Church could not make its Hofmann documents public to answer these innuendos of suppression without seeming to try to influence or impede the criminal investigation.
On 11 April 1986, after months of searching through its records and collections, the Church published a complete list of the forty-eight documents and groups of court records then known to have been acquired from Mark Hofmann. That list spoke for itself: It was a mixture of the already-published, the intriguing, the routine, and the trivial. Now, over a year later, we know that some of the forty-eight are forgeries, because they were named in the criminal charges and confessed by Hofmann during his questioning by prosecutors.
But Hofmann handled many documents that were not specifically listed in the criminal charges and covered in the subsequent questioning. So, like most owners of Hofmann-handled documents, the Church is still unsure how many of such documents are forgeries and which are genuine. As of this date, the Church does not even have possession of all of the forty-eight it acquired. The prosecution has not yet returned the last thirteen, which include the documents of greatest interest to the public.
Despite the Church’s publication of a complete list of its acquisitions from Hofmann, the allegations of suppression continued.
I am wondering why we STILL don't have access to those documents if they're not actually being "suppressed". He made it sound like the church has nothing to hide and would be more than happy to publicize them all if they were in their possession, but unfortunately the prosecution had them so it was currently out of their hands until they finally get them back. It's been over 20 years since this talk...why have they STILL not been released I wonder. Let me guess...the prosecution still has them and the church is still afraid of swaying the investigation?
Not that I think the forgeries are actually all that damning to the church...I just want to read them out of sheer curiosity...besides, Oaks said that it's possible some of those documents are actually REAL ones as they've never been proven either way. I'd REALLY like to read some of them, and Oaks makes it sound like he's not opposed to them being made public...so why on Earth are they still being suppressed 20 years later when he just said here that there was no suppression going on and that such accusations were false?
I see Hofmann's sister every few weeks or so when I visit my in-laws for the weekend (she doesn't like people finding out the relation, and is glad her maiden name changed now. lol So it's an interesting topic to me anyway.
