Reaction Of Senator Patrick Leahy,
Ranking Democratic Member, Senate Judiciary Committee,
To Reports That Miguel Estrada
Will Ask For Withdrawal Of His Nomination
To The D.C. Circuit Court Of Appeals
September 4, 2003

“I have seen the reports that Miguel Estrada intends to ask the President to withdraw his nomination to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. 

“This nomination is another casualty of the White House’s insistence on dividing instead of uniting the American people over the President’s decisions for the federal courts.  For more than a year, the White House has consistently spurned many private and public bipartisan appeals to resolve this by giving the Senate access to the requested documents.  Mr. Estrada’s work at the Justice Department is at the core of the Administration’s claims for his qualification to serve on this court, yet they have denied the Senate’s access to his work records from that job, despite ample precedents from similar document requests involving earlier nominations.  This stonewalling, combined with Mr. Estrada’s reluctance to substantively answer senators’ questions, prompted this impasse.

“This was a nomination for a lifetime appointment to the second-highest court in the land.  The Constitution gives the Senate the duty to make informed judgments for these lifetime appointments to the courts, and senators cannot make informed judgments if the White House stonewalls the Senate.

“In the absence of that cooperation from the White House, and with the persistence of the White House’s stonewalling, Mr. Estrada has concluded that this impasse will continue.  He is probably right, and he and his family can now move on with their lives.”

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