Now his message is far more stick than carrot. As he said in our interview, the new Dem leaders would be unleashing the furies from hell if they engage in “presidential harassment.”

“I will hit them so hard, they’ve never seen a hit like that,” he said, referring to his power to release secret documents, some of which, he hinted, will be deeply embarrassing to Barack Obama’s administration.

“If they want to play tough, I will do it,” he said. “And they will see how devastating those pages are.”

I believe the president should release any such documents now, regardless of their partisan impact. Excessive secrecy serves only to hide official wrongdoing and the lack of transparency fuels public mistrust.