Bush Administration Won’t Be Releasing Confidential Roberts Documents
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Bush administration does not want to release confidential memos that U.S. Supreme Court nominee John Roberts wrote when he worked for two Republican presidents, a White House adviser said on Sunday.
Former Sen. Fred Thompson, named by President Bush to steer Roberts’ confirmation through the Senate, disputed calls by some Democrats to turn over all the documents from Roberts’ tenure at the White House and Justice Department.
“The administration’s been pretty consistent on that, in fact, I think very consistent, in that (confidential documents) will not be forthcoming,” Thompson said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“Conversations he has with his priest, conversations he has with his doctor or his wife or his client are matters that are off limits, basically,” said Thompson, a Republican who represented Tennessee in the Senate.
This is the exact same tactic used by Democrats to obstruct the appointment of John Bolton as UN Ambassador. They make unprecedented requests for documents that no Presidential administration has ever released for the purpose of determining a candidates eligibility for any post. Then, when the Administration makes the predictable response of denying access to the documents, the Democrats make ominous sounds about things the administration might be hiding.
After all the time we’ve already spent on debating White House nominations over the past several years one would hope that Democrats could set aside partisan politics for a nominee who most reasonable would agree is eminently qualified for the position he is to fill.
