Specter-Leahy Request More
Information From Miers
Bipartisan
Letter Asks Supreme Court Nominee to Clarify Responses to
Committee’s Questionnaire
Below is a bipartisan letter
Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Ranking
Member Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) sent on Wednesday to Supreme Court
nominee Harriet Miers seeking more information relating to her
nomination to be an Associate Justice. The senators have asked
Miers to clarify her responses to the committee’s
questionnaire. Miers submitted the questionnaire earlier this
week.
An pdf version is available.
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October 19, 2005
Harriet E. Miers, Esq.
White House Counsel
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Ms. Miers:
Thank you for your responses to
the Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire. While your
answers have been helpful to the Committee, there are some
questions that we believe require clarification in order for the
Committee to have the information it requires to thoroughly
review your record prior to the hearing. Please prepare a
supplement to your responses, specifically addressing the areas
outlined below with as much detail, particularity, and precision
as possible.
Q11(a). Bar and Court Admission
Please explain in
greater detail exactly when, and under what circumstances, you
were suspended from the D.C. Bar for non-payment of dues.
Include any documentation, notices from the Bar, cancelled
checks, or correspondence, which would help us understand the
facts and circumstances of your suspension. Also inform the
Committee whether, during the time of your suspension, you
appeared in any courts in the District of
Columbia.
Q12(a). Memberships
Please supplement the
responses to this question, cross-checking and consulting the
attachments to the questionnaire or any other sources that may
be available to you, so that as many dates of your membership in
various organizations are included with as much precision as
possible. Please provide greater detail in describing “the
nature and objectives of each such organization,” paying
particular attention to “the nature of your participation in
each such organization.” While we realize that for some of
these organizations there may not be “an officer or other person
from whom more detailed information may be obtained,” please
briefly describe your efforts in attempting to locate contact
information for those organizations for which you found none.
Q14(b). Public Office, Political
Activities and Affiliations
Please supplement your
answer to this question, listing all reports, memoranda, or
policy statements prepared, produced with your participation, or
produced under your guidance during the time in which you served
in any
public office, including your various positions at the Dallas
Bar Association, the State Bar of Texas, the American Bar
Association or any of your positions in the White House. Please
also provide the Committee with any policy position documents or
questionnaires you filled out while running for Dallas City
Council. Specifically, if you sought particular group
endorsements or responded to position questions by particular
groups in the community, please describe and append relevant
materials.
Q14(c).
Please explain in greater detail
any issues of law or public policy on which you worked on behalf
of or in connection with a gubernatorial or presidential
transition team. Please also supply copies of any memoranda
analyzing these issues of law or public policy on which you
focused during that time. If you cannot provide these
materials, please explain to the Committee why this is not
possible.
Q16. Litigation
Please provide a “list [of]
all litigated
matters in which you were involved” which are not already
mentioned in your response to any other questions. The
Committee has, for example, identified additional cases not
included in your original responses. If possible, please also
provide dates for these matters.
Q17. Constitutional Issues
In answer to question
17, you explained that as Counsel to the President you are
regularly faced with issues involving constitutional questions,
but gave us no specifics about the issues themselves, or the
work that you personally did. Please provide the Committee with
details concerning the specific matters you handled, the
constitutional issues presented in those matters, and the
positions you took related to those issues. This question was
designed to help the Committee learn more about your experience
with constitutional law, and if most of it was gained during
your years in the White House, it is important that we know more
about the specifics of that experience.
Q20. Party to Civil, Legal or
Administrative Proceedings
Your response to
question 20 indicates that your firm was a party to a number of
lawsuits over the years. Please provide information about each
of those suits, even those suits in which neither you nor your
work were subject of the complaint. In addition, please list
the suits in which you were named in your official capacity as a
public official, and provide a brief description of each. For
example, there have been press reports of civil actions against
your firm involving multi-million dollar settlements that
occurred during the time you were either managing partner or
president of the firm, about which the Committee would like more
information.
Q22. Potential Conflicts of
Interest
Please be more specific in your
answer to this question by telling the Committee any categories
of cases from which you plan to recuse yourself, and by
addressing in particular the problem of recusal as it relates to
the litigation of cases arising out of matters on which you
worked at the White House, or as a lawyer for President Bush in
his personal capacity, or in service to his various campaigns.
We are aware of the statutes and codes that generally govern
these matters, but recusal decisions of Supreme Court Justices
are more complicated because they are not subject to further
review. The Committee would like you to address the issues
specific to your situation.
Q27. Selection
Process
If you
did not make any representations to any individuals or interest
groups as to how you might rule if confirmed, please respond, to
the best of your knowledge, to the second part of question
27(c), which asks you to describe and provide copies of, “all
communications by the Bush Administration or individuals acting
on behalf of the Administration to any individuals or interest
groups with respect to how you would rule.” This would include
any and all communications, including those about which there
have been recent press reports, in which friends and supporters
of yours, among others, were said to have been asked by the
White House to assure certain individuals about your views. If
you do not have first-hand knowledge of these communications,
please endeavor to determine what sorts of communications, if
any, took place.
We appreciated your prompt
response to our questionnaire, and would ask you to respond to
this request by Wednesday, October 26th. Your
answers to our questions are essential to the Committee’s
process of thoroughly reviewing your record prior to making our
recommendation to the full Senate on your nomination.
Sincerely,
Arlen
Specter
Patrick Leahy
Chairman
Ranking Member
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