Comment Of Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.,
Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee,
On The Discovery Of New, Unreleased Documents
Relating To Supreme Court Nominee John Roberts
August 30, 2005

“The Administration’s handling of information relating to this important nomination is extremely disappointing.  With less than a week to go before the hearings begin, we learn that this Administration has even failed to live up to its promise to produce all of the relevant files from John Roberts’s time in the Reagan White House. 

“This discovery comes late in this process and after requests from Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee for information on Judge Roberts’s record have been delayed and denied.  This Administration has set an unsettling pattern of secrecy by slow-walking relevant documents and stonewalling a narrow request for key records.  Still held from the Senate’s view are work papers from John Roberts’s work as a political appointee in the Office of the Solicitor General, in the Administration of former President Bush.  Another file, on affirmative action, has gone missing. 

 “The Senate soon will decide on a lifetime appointment to our highest court, and we have only one chance to get it right.  The hearings begin in less than a week.  The remaining documents should be provided immediately and without any further delay.  The Judiciary Committee has been hard at work preparing for expedited hearings on this important nomination, and there is no doubt that this last-minute revelation is a hindrance to that preparation.”

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