The Washington Free Beacon has been a thorn in the side of the nascent Hillary Clinton campaign for months, digging into the treasure trove of material on the Clintons found in the special collections section of the University of Arkansas libraries.

Now, the dean of libraries - a donor to the 2008 Clinton campaign for president - has barred the Free Beacon from accessing any papers in the special collections section becaise they failed to fill out a form.

The ban came days after the Free Beacon ran a story about Clinton’s 1975 defense of a child rapist that drew from audio recordings available at the University of Arkansas library’s special collections archives.

However, the ban was not mentioned in a June 16 email to this reporter from Steve Voorhies, manager of media relations at the university.

“Congratulations on another fine mining expedition into the University of Arkansas Libraries archives,” Voorhies wrote.

“I appreciate you raising the profile of the University of Arkansas Libraries special collections,” Voorhies concluded his email, while asking for advanced notice prior to future stories.

“I expect there is more you will find in coming months,” he said.

Library dean Carolyn Henderson Allen informed editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti in a June 17 letter that the library had “officially suspended” the Free Beacon‘s research privileges.

The Free Beacon published the Hillary Papers, drawn from the archive of the late Clinton confidante Diane Blair, in February. Those papers are also housed in the special collections at the University of Arkansas.

“I am writing you to direct you and the Washington Beacon Press to cease and desist your ongoing violation of the intellectual property rights of the University of Arkansas with regard to your unauthorized publication of audio recordings obtained from the Roy Reed Collection,” wrote Allen.

According to Allen, who contributed $500 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2007, the Free Beacon violated library rules by failing to submit a form requesting permission to publish the materials.

Allen called on the news outlet to “immediately remove the audio recordings of the Roy Reed Collection from your website” and “immediately return all audio recordings obtained from the Roy Reed Collection previously provided to you.”

The Clinton donor also expressed deep disappointment with the Free Beacon.

“I am very disappointed in your willful failure to comply with the policies of Special Collections,” she wrote.

This isn't the first time an academic institution has protected a Democratic presidential candidate from receiving too much scrutiny. AT News Editor Ed Lasky pointed out in an email that NRO's Stanley Kurtz, looking into Barack Obama's time at the Annenberg Project where he worked with Bill Ayers, was denied access to papers on the project housed at the University of Chicago.

Kurtz explained in an NRO article from August, 2008:

The Special Collections section of the Richard J. Daley Library agreed to let me read them, but just before I boarded my flight to Chicago, the top library officials mysteriously intervened to bar access. Circumstances strongly suggest the likelihood that Bill Ayers himself may have played a pivotal role in this denial. Ayers has long taught at UIC, where the Chicago Annenberg Challenge offices were housed, rent-free. Ayers likely arranged for the files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to be housed in the UIC library, and may well have been consulted during my unsuccessful struggle to gain access to the documents. Let me, then, explain in greater detail what the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) records are, and how I have been blocked from seeing them.

Initially, as I said, library officials said that I could examine the CAC records. I received this permission both over the phone and in writing. The subsequent denial of access came with a series of evolving explanations. Is this a politically motivated cover-up? Although at this stage it is impossible to know, it is hard to avoid the suspicion. I also have some concerns for the security of the documents, although I have no specific evidence that their security is endangered. In any case, given the relative dearth of information about Barack Obama’s political past, there is a powerful public interest in the swift release of these documents.

By now, those UIC Annenberg records have been assiduously scrubbed of anything that could possibly reflect negatively on President Obama. I suspect Clinton operatives are doing the same with the U. of Arkansas records as I write this. The bottom line: Democrats take care of their own. And while the Democrat-Media complex savagely and relentlessly attacks any Republican candidate who can challenge Hillary Clinton in 2016, the GOP can do little except whisper into the whirlwind of scandal and smears.