bulloney

the good news is the white house released a lot of john roberts' writings, and this was in one of his 1986 memos:

"The Senate is free to consider under the Constitution all cases it needs to consider in voting on a nomination. The Senate should have access to all relevant material before voting on confirmation."

unfortunately it all came from reagan's justice department. the bushers still won't give the senate anything from '89-'93, when roberts was #2 in the solicitor general's office.

that's his most influential work, because the SG submits an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief whenever the government has an interest in the outcome of a case it's not party to, and something like 3 out of 4 decisions go the way the SG's amicus briefs recommend, which is a better record than the justice department has at winning when it's one of the parties in a case.

the administration claims it can withhold those documents under attorney-client privilege, because waiving the privilege would chill the ability to give advice in the highest levels of government.

david bookbinder calls that "bulloney!" [his pronunciation—or how i heard it, anyway.]

he's a lawyer with the sierra club who spoke friday as part of a press conference hosted by nan aron of the alliance for justice. aron read the memo excerpt quoted above and later added that the white house's refusal to provide documents establishes dangerous precedent that would limit the scope of senate inquiries and undermine the senate's ability to advise and consent.

bookbinder said it's not plausible that a lawyer wouldn't give honest and straightforward advice because 20 years later he might get nominated to the supreme court and somebody might look at his records and criticize him.

bookbinder went on to ask: since privilege is a red herring, what lies behind refusal to turn over documents?

he said there are 2 possibilities:

1. secrecy for its own sake: the administration is obsessed with secrecy and believes secrecy is a virtue; or

2. roberts wrote some things so outrageous that even a gop-dominated senate will reject him.

makes sense to me. and that's how it'll look.