For about a week, there’s been a subtle dance between Senate Dems and the White House when it came to a discussion over John Roberts’ papers from his work during previous Republican administrations. Predictably, the Bush gang said the documents couldn’t be released and were protected under attorney-client privilege. Dems, of course, responded by noting that Roberts has a thin judicial record, making his papers all the more relevant, and the documents are part of Roberts’ work when he was representing the public.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, it seems the White House blinked<\/a>, at least a little.<\/p>\n The White House will make public the bulk of documents related to Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.’s service as a lawyer in Ronald Reagan’s administration but will withhold papers generated during his time as deputy solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush to preserve privileged internal deliberations, officials said last night.<\/p>\n The policy was crafted in response to demands by Senate Democrats who want to look at files connected to Roberts’s tenure in two Republican administrations for clues to his views as a potential justice. The White House said it settled on the policy in consultation with Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and that some documents would be available for review beginning today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Granted, the “compromise” here is pretty weak. Senators will have a chance to review<\/a> about 50,000 pages from Roberts’ work in the Reagan White House from 1981 to 1986. Lawmakers will not see materials from Roberts’ work as H.W. Bush’s solicitor general in the early ’90s, which are the ones Dems feel may be the most damaging.<\/p>\n But the phrase I cared most about from the Washington Post report<\/a> was: “in response to demands by Senate Democrats.” Since when has the Bush White House caved in any way to anything Senate Dems were demanding? The usual response is, “No. What are you going to do about it?”<\/p>\n