dcentity2000
<font color=red>Simba Cub<br><font color=green>Is
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2003
- Messages
- 10,057
Secretive Whitehouse?
- Thread starter dcentity2000
- Start date
treesinger
<font color=blue>Runs in fear from the <font color
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2002
- Messages
- 1,774
I may be wrong, but my understanding is that no President is ever required to hand over any info regarding SC nominees. People aren't forbidden for asking for the info, but I don't think there's any obligation for the Pres. to share the info from his interview.
Anyway, Congress will have their chance to address Roberts directly before confirmation and I'm sure they will ask PLENTY of questions.
Anyway, Congress will have their chance to address Roberts directly before confirmation and I'm sure they will ask PLENTY of questions.
dcentity2000
<font color=red>Simba Cub<br><font color=green>Is
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2003
- Messages
- 10,057
DawnCt1 said:
Don't jump down my throat, you might hit my lunch
I don't even know what the heck and attorney is. Do they function as a solicitor or a barrister? Or are they simple advisers?
If it is as simple as confidentiality, why did Reuters, perhaps the biggest and most impartial news source, report it?
Rich::
disneyworldgirl
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2005
- Messages
- 1,231
An attorney is the same as a solicitor. I'm not sure how things work in the UK; but here in the US, attorney/client privilege is usually invoked in order to protect a client from self-incrimination in criminal cases, and from damaging their chances of winning in civil cases. What this has to do with the White House, I'm not sure. I can understand if there were concerns about classified material, but I'm sure that any references to national security issues could be redacted, and John Roberts' records then released.
Personally, I have to wonder if there isn't something in those records that would create concern about confirming Roberts (or maybe there's something that GWB doesn't want the people to know about his own activities?).
Personally, I have to wonder if there isn't something in those records that would create concern about confirming Roberts (or maybe there's something that GWB doesn't want the people to know about his own activities?).
DawnCt1 said:
As was established during the Clinton years, there is no attorney/client privilege between the individual and the attorney if the attorney is a government attorney. Here's a few opinions:
http://www.digenovatoensing.com/inthenews/No_Client_Atty_Privilege.htm
http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/legislat...ongress/confirmation_watch/estrada_memos.html
http://www.acprivilege.com/articles/acgovern.htm
The right gets hoisted by their own petards again.
And lest I forget, Ding, ding, ding,............I'm the winner here. I mentioned Bill Clinton first. Wonder what I'll give myself as a prize.
wvrevy said:Yeah, and if they were I'm sure the administration would go to the trouble of withholding them.
Depends what he ordered... I figure him for a pastrami on rye kinda guy. But his nomination's in trouble if he's going for a salad with no dressing
bcvillastwo
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2002
- Messages
- 649
The poster who wrote this is treading on thin ice if they believe the lies, inuendo's, and half truths put out by the press (left, right, and otherwise).
wvrevy
Daddy to da' princess, which I guess makes me da'
- Joined
- Nov 7, 1999
- Messages
- 8,130
Here is a nice article about some of the documents the white house could be troubled to release. Since some of this stuff is certainly incindiary, you really have to wonder what the Bush administration is withholding.
-------------
Documents Show Roberts Influence In Reagan Era
By R. Jeffrey Smith, Jo Becker and Amy Goldstein, Washington Post Staff Writers Wed Jul 27, 1:00 AM ET
Newly released documents show that John G. Roberts Jr. was a significant backstage player in the legal policy debates of the early Reagan administration, confidently debating older Justice Department officials and supplying them with arguments and information that they used to wage a bureaucratic struggle for the president's agenda.
Roberts presented a defense of bills in Congress that would have stripped the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over abortion, busing and school prayer cases; he argued for a narrow interpretation of Title IX, the landmark law that bars sex discrimination in intercollegiate athletic programs; and he even counseled his boss on how to tell the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow that the administration was cutting off federal funding for the Atlanta center that bears his name.
The documents are from Roberts's 1981-1982 tenure as a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith. Like previously reported memos from Roberts's stint in President
Ronald Reagan's White House in the mid-1980s, the documents made available from the National Archives yesterday show a man in his mid-twenties deeply engaged in the conservative restructuring of government that the new president had promised.
To a greater extent than the White House documents previously released, the more than 15,000 pages of Justice Department memos show Roberts speaking at times in his own voice. In memos to the attorney general or senior officials of the Justice Department, Roberts argued for restrictions on the rights of prisoners to litigate their grievances; depicted as "judicial activism" a lower court's order requiring a sign-language interpreter for a hearing-impaired public school student who had already been given a hearing aid and tutors; and argued for wider latitude for prosecutors and police to question suspects out of the presence of their attorneys.
In the rare instances revealed in the documents in which Roberts disagreed with his superiors on the proper legal course to take on major social issues of the day, he advocated a more conservative tack.
In one instance, he wrote a memo to the attorney general urging Smith to disregard the recommendation of William Bradford Reynolds, the head of the agency's civil rights division, that the administration should intervene on behalf of female inmates in a sex discrimination case involving job training for prisoners.
"I recommend that you do not approve intervention in this case," Roberts wrote. He said that such a step would be inconsistent with the administration's belief in judicial restraint and that, if equal treatment for male and female prisoners was required, "the end result in this time of state prison budgets may be no programs for anyone." Besides, he said, private plaintiffs were already bringing suit.
On June 15, 1982, Roberts faulted the Justice Department for the outcome in Plyler v. Doe , in which the Supreme Court overturned a Texas law that had allowed school districts to deny enrollment to children who had entered the country illegally.
Roberts argued that if the solicitor general's office had taken a position in the case supporting the state of Texas "and the values of judicial restraint," it could have "altered the outcome of the case."
"In sum, this is a case in which our supposed litigation program to encourage judicial restraint did not get off the ground, and should have," Roberts wrote.
Much of Roberts's time at the Justice Department was taken up by the debate over GOP-sponsored bills in Congress that would have stripped the Supreme Court of its jurisdiction over abortion, busing and school prayer cases. He wrote repeatedly in opposition to the view, advanced by then-Assistant Attorney General Theodore B. Olson, that the bills were unconstitutional. He scrawled "NO!" in the margins of an April 12, 1982, note Olson sent to Smith. In the memo, Olson observed that opposing the bills would "be perceived as a courageous and highly principled position, especially in the press."
Roberts drew a bracket around the paragraph, underlined the words "especially in the press," and wrote in the margin: "Real courage would be to read the Constitution as it should be read and not kowtow to the Tribes, Lewises and Brinks!"
The three appear to be to Harvard Law School professor Laurence H. Tribe, New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis and then-American Bar Association President David R. Brink, who opposed the bills.
Roberts added skeptical margin notes again when Olson wrote that the bills were unnecessary because the court now had more Republican-appointed members than it had in the 1960s, and was moving to the right as a result.
Roberts underlined the name of one of the Republican appointees Olson listed, Justice Harry A. Blackmun, the author of
Roe v. Wade , and drew an arrow connecting it to the word "abortion."
Later, then-counselor to the attorney general Kenneth W. Starr asked Roberts to prepare a memo that "marshals arguments in favor of Congress' power to control" the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. Roberts noted as a result that his memo "was prepared from a standpoint of advocacy of congressional power . . . [and] does not purport to be an objective review of the issue."
Roberts approvingly cited comments by "Professor Scalia" -- then-University of Chicago law professor
Antonin Scalia -- at a conference on the bills. Scalia "recognized that non-uniformity in the interpretation of federal law could be criticized as 'sloppy,' but asked: compared to what? Given the choice between non-uniformity and the uniform imposition of the judicial excesses embodied in Roe v. Wade, Scalia was prepared to choose the former alternative."
Roberts also took issue with the view that bills restricting the court's jurisdiction would be unconstitutional because they interfere with "fundamental rights." "None of the pending bills concerning jurisdiction in abortion or school prayer cases directly burden the exercise of any fundamental rights," he wrote.
The department eventually adopted Olson's view.
In 1982, Roberts urged the attorney general not to back a
Department of Education investigation of alleged sex discrimination in athletics at the University of Richmond.
Previously, the Carter administration had sided with the Education Department, arguing that Title IX gave the federal government wide authority over all programs at a federally funded university, whether the specific program received federal money or not.
But Roberts agreed with Reynolds's decision for the civil rights division not to appeal a contrary ruling by a district judge, arguing that "under Title IX, federal investigators cannot rummage willy-nilly through institutions, but can go only as far as the federal funds can go."
"The women's groups pressuring us to appeal would have regulatory agencies usurp power denied them by Congress to achieve an anti-discrimination goal. Under your leadership the Department is committed to opposing such legislation by the bureaucracy and that commitment should continue in this case," Roberts wrote.
In 1981, outgoing U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Chairman Arthur Flemming wrote a report lauding the accomplishments of affirmative action. That document landed on Roberts's desk for a critique. He derided what he called the "perfectly circular" arguments in favor of affirmative action, as well as Flemming's contention that any affirmative action failures are caused not by inherent flaws but instead by sabotage.
"There is no recognition of the obvious reason for failure: the affirmative action program required the recruiting of inadequately prepared candidates," Roberts wrote. As a postscript, he added: "I have drafted an innocuous reply to Chairman Flemming. The report is attached, although I do not recommend reading it."
In September 1982, Roberts played the role of diplomatic coach, advising Smith on how to handle an upcoming meeting with Coretta Scott King, the widow of the slain civil rights leader. The Carter administration's Justice Department had supplied a $250,000 grant to the Atlanta-based King Center for Non-violent Social Change, to teach conflict resolution in the hopes of reducing violent crime.
The grant, approved in 1980, had run out and the Reagan administration planned not to renew it. Roberts, in a Sept. 16, 1982, memo, called the program "very poorly run" and said that it had only received funding because of "political ties" between King and Homer Broome Jr., a black Justice Department official. But rather than share those concerns bluntly with King, Roberts advised, Smith should instead tell her "there is simply no money available for additional funding," and "indicate support for the activities of the King Center, and even pleasure that the Justice Department was able to be of assistance in advancing" its goals.
The trusted role Roberts played at the Justice Department was evident from his first day on the job when he began helping prepare
Sandra Day O'Connor for her nomination to the Supreme Court. Roberts has now been nominated to succeed her.
In a memo, he outlined a plan for O'Connor not unlike the one now being undertaken on his behalf: "The approach was to avoid giving specific responses to any direct questions on legal issues likely to come before the Court, but demonstrating in the response a firm command of the subject area and awareness of the relevant precedents and arguments."
Staff writer Charles Lane and researcher Jill Bartscht contributed to this report.
-------------
Documents Show Roberts Influence In Reagan Era
By R. Jeffrey Smith, Jo Becker and Amy Goldstein, Washington Post Staff Writers Wed Jul 27, 1:00 AM ET
Newly released documents show that John G. Roberts Jr. was a significant backstage player in the legal policy debates of the early Reagan administration, confidently debating older Justice Department officials and supplying them with arguments and information that they used to wage a bureaucratic struggle for the president's agenda.
Roberts presented a defense of bills in Congress that would have stripped the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over abortion, busing and school prayer cases; he argued for a narrow interpretation of Title IX, the landmark law that bars sex discrimination in intercollegiate athletic programs; and he even counseled his boss on how to tell the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow that the administration was cutting off federal funding for the Atlanta center that bears his name.
The documents are from Roberts's 1981-1982 tenure as a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith. Like previously reported memos from Roberts's stint in President
Ronald Reagan's White House in the mid-1980s, the documents made available from the National Archives yesterday show a man in his mid-twenties deeply engaged in the conservative restructuring of government that the new president had promised.
To a greater extent than the White House documents previously released, the more than 15,000 pages of Justice Department memos show Roberts speaking at times in his own voice. In memos to the attorney general or senior officials of the Justice Department, Roberts argued for restrictions on the rights of prisoners to litigate their grievances; depicted as "judicial activism" a lower court's order requiring a sign-language interpreter for a hearing-impaired public school student who had already been given a hearing aid and tutors; and argued for wider latitude for prosecutors and police to question suspects out of the presence of their attorneys.
In the rare instances revealed in the documents in which Roberts disagreed with his superiors on the proper legal course to take on major social issues of the day, he advocated a more conservative tack.
In one instance, he wrote a memo to the attorney general urging Smith to disregard the recommendation of William Bradford Reynolds, the head of the agency's civil rights division, that the administration should intervene on behalf of female inmates in a sex discrimination case involving job training for prisoners.
"I recommend that you do not approve intervention in this case," Roberts wrote. He said that such a step would be inconsistent with the administration's belief in judicial restraint and that, if equal treatment for male and female prisoners was required, "the end result in this time of state prison budgets may be no programs for anyone." Besides, he said, private plaintiffs were already bringing suit.
On June 15, 1982, Roberts faulted the Justice Department for the outcome in Plyler v. Doe , in which the Supreme Court overturned a Texas law that had allowed school districts to deny enrollment to children who had entered the country illegally.
Roberts argued that if the solicitor general's office had taken a position in the case supporting the state of Texas "and the values of judicial restraint," it could have "altered the outcome of the case."
"In sum, this is a case in which our supposed litigation program to encourage judicial restraint did not get off the ground, and should have," Roberts wrote.
Much of Roberts's time at the Justice Department was taken up by the debate over GOP-sponsored bills in Congress that would have stripped the Supreme Court of its jurisdiction over abortion, busing and school prayer cases. He wrote repeatedly in opposition to the view, advanced by then-Assistant Attorney General Theodore B. Olson, that the bills were unconstitutional. He scrawled "NO!" in the margins of an April 12, 1982, note Olson sent to Smith. In the memo, Olson observed that opposing the bills would "be perceived as a courageous and highly principled position, especially in the press."
Roberts drew a bracket around the paragraph, underlined the words "especially in the press," and wrote in the margin: "Real courage would be to read the Constitution as it should be read and not kowtow to the Tribes, Lewises and Brinks!"
The three appear to be to Harvard Law School professor Laurence H. Tribe, New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis and then-American Bar Association President David R. Brink, who opposed the bills.
Roberts added skeptical margin notes again when Olson wrote that the bills were unnecessary because the court now had more Republican-appointed members than it had in the 1960s, and was moving to the right as a result.
Roberts underlined the name of one of the Republican appointees Olson listed, Justice Harry A. Blackmun, the author of
Roe v. Wade , and drew an arrow connecting it to the word "abortion."
Later, then-counselor to the attorney general Kenneth W. Starr asked Roberts to prepare a memo that "marshals arguments in favor of Congress' power to control" the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. Roberts noted as a result that his memo "was prepared from a standpoint of advocacy of congressional power . . . [and] does not purport to be an objective review of the issue."
Roberts approvingly cited comments by "Professor Scalia" -- then-University of Chicago law professor
Antonin Scalia -- at a conference on the bills. Scalia "recognized that non-uniformity in the interpretation of federal law could be criticized as 'sloppy,' but asked: compared to what? Given the choice between non-uniformity and the uniform imposition of the judicial excesses embodied in Roe v. Wade, Scalia was prepared to choose the former alternative."
Roberts also took issue with the view that bills restricting the court's jurisdiction would be unconstitutional because they interfere with "fundamental rights." "None of the pending bills concerning jurisdiction in abortion or school prayer cases directly burden the exercise of any fundamental rights," he wrote.
The department eventually adopted Olson's view.
In 1982, Roberts urged the attorney general not to back a
Department of Education investigation of alleged sex discrimination in athletics at the University of Richmond.
Previously, the Carter administration had sided with the Education Department, arguing that Title IX gave the federal government wide authority over all programs at a federally funded university, whether the specific program received federal money or not.
But Roberts agreed with Reynolds's decision for the civil rights division not to appeal a contrary ruling by a district judge, arguing that "under Title IX, federal investigators cannot rummage willy-nilly through institutions, but can go only as far as the federal funds can go."
"The women's groups pressuring us to appeal would have regulatory agencies usurp power denied them by Congress to achieve an anti-discrimination goal. Under your leadership the Department is committed to opposing such legislation by the bureaucracy and that commitment should continue in this case," Roberts wrote.
In 1981, outgoing U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Chairman Arthur Flemming wrote a report lauding the accomplishments of affirmative action. That document landed on Roberts's desk for a critique. He derided what he called the "perfectly circular" arguments in favor of affirmative action, as well as Flemming's contention that any affirmative action failures are caused not by inherent flaws but instead by sabotage.
"There is no recognition of the obvious reason for failure: the affirmative action program required the recruiting of inadequately prepared candidates," Roberts wrote. As a postscript, he added: "I have drafted an innocuous reply to Chairman Flemming. The report is attached, although I do not recommend reading it."
In September 1982, Roberts played the role of diplomatic coach, advising Smith on how to handle an upcoming meeting with Coretta Scott King, the widow of the slain civil rights leader. The Carter administration's Justice Department had supplied a $250,000 grant to the Atlanta-based King Center for Non-violent Social Change, to teach conflict resolution in the hopes of reducing violent crime.
The grant, approved in 1980, had run out and the Reagan administration planned not to renew it. Roberts, in a Sept. 16, 1982, memo, called the program "very poorly run" and said that it had only received funding because of "political ties" between King and Homer Broome Jr., a black Justice Department official. But rather than share those concerns bluntly with King, Roberts advised, Smith should instead tell her "there is simply no money available for additional funding," and "indicate support for the activities of the King Center, and even pleasure that the Justice Department was able to be of assistance in advancing" its goals.
The trusted role Roberts played at the Justice Department was evident from his first day on the job when he began helping prepare
Sandra Day O'Connor for her nomination to the Supreme Court. Roberts has now been nominated to succeed her.
In a memo, he outlined a plan for O'Connor not unlike the one now being undertaken on his behalf: "The approach was to avoid giving specific responses to any direct questions on legal issues likely to come before the Court, but demonstrating in the response a firm command of the subject area and awareness of the relevant precedents and arguments."
Staff writer Charles Lane and researcher Jill Bartscht contributed to this report.
disneyworldgirl
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2005
- Messages
- 1,231
ThAnswr said:
Great articles, and point well-taken. As for your prize: :thewave:
bcvillastwo
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2002
- Messages
- 649
Is this roughly equal to trying to prove a negative or is it more like a "are you still beating your wife?" statement.
Isn't this what 60 minutes does? If you refuse to answer their questions then the implication is that you have something to hide. Lets face it folks, people who refuse to answer questions don't always have something to hide. But of course sometimes they do have something to hide. So, how can you know? Why of course you let your subjective ideology decide and not facts.
ead79
<font color=#FF0066>Disney Bride!<br><font color=v
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2000
- Messages
- 10,436
Heres what I make of it. Its political posturing on both sides. The White House wants to take the stance that they are not required to release every single shred of information about Roberts (which of course could be relevant and could be not so relevant). This angers the Democrats, who want to at least have the opportunity to see everything even remotely related to Roberts. In the end, the White House wants to be sure that nothing that might hold up his confirmation comes to light and the Democrats want to be sure to find something to use against him. This is the sort of thing that gets frustrating with politics. Lets just release relevant information and discuss relevant issues, not try to hide information *or* try to find something irrelevant to convict Roberts in the court of public opinion and sound bites.
disneyworldgirl said:Great articles, and point well-taken. As for your prize: :thewave:
Thanks for the prizes.
So let's set the scenario: A government group is asking for the opinions of a government attorney, who works for a government agency, and offers those opinions on behalf of a government client.
What attorney/client privilege?
sodaseller
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2004
- Messages
- 2,701
DawnCt1 said:
Who's the client? Plus Sword and Shield Doctrine. Beware talking points
sodaseller said:
Here's an interesting "petard": Ken Starr agued that attorney/client privilege ended with the death of the client. The client in this case was Vince Foster and he paid for his own attorney. The court sided with Foster's attorney and against Starr.
However, who was Robert's client: Ronald Reagan, and he is most certainly dead. Somebody ought to ask Starr his probably revised opinion. Or better yet, remind the WH that what goes around, comes around.
Pass the popcorn.
sodaseller
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2004
- Messages
- 2,701
Starr's argument on this issue was always legally absurd, as were many of his legal positions. Parenthetically, though there have been some limited leaks, the professionalism of the Fitzgerald inquiry is damning against Starr by comparison - it shows that such a politically sensitive investigation can be conducted with the wholesale leaks and political hackery designed to advance no further cause than partisan combat.ThAnswr said:
With that aside, the issue of A/C privilege is a nonstarter here. The client is the United States or the EOP. If it is the former, Congress is coequal (more technically superior) branch of government with equal right to the documents. Now internal Senate rules may limit an individual minority member's right to demand documents on behalf of the Senate, but that is not a matter of legal privilege.
If the client is the EOP, then the applicable privilege is Executive Privilege, not attorney-client. But the term "Executive Privilege" is unfairly tainted by association with Nixon, so no one wants to invoke it, though this circumstance seems ideal for invocation of the privilege. Cheney in practical effect invoked Executive Privilege to resist turning over the Energy Task Force papers that would have doubtlessly shown that Ken Lay was doing more than appointing FERC Commissioners
crazyforgoofy
Finally - Isabella's forever Mom! 9/08/05
- Joined
- May 11, 2002
- Messages
- 6,273
ThAnswr said:
Don't you love it? What goes around comes around!
Share this page
-
WALL*E & EVE to Appear at Disneyland Resort For Earth Month
-
The Disney Ducks You Never Knew You Needed Now at Disney Springs
-
Enjoy Great Cocktails and Food at The Craftsman Bar at Disneyland
-
How To Plan a Disney Trip When Not Everyone Is a Disney Fan
-
New Girls Crew Disney Parks Jewelry Collection Arrives This Month
-
Gideon's Bakehouse Debuts April Treats & Merch at Disney Springs
-
5 Disney's Hollywood Studios Tees Worth Grabbing Right Now
Disney Vacation Planning. Free. Done for You.
Our Authorized Disney Vacation Planners are here to provide personalized, expert advice, answer every question, and uncover the best discounts.
Let Dreams Unlimited Travel take care of all the details, so you can sit back, relax, and enjoy a stress-free vacation.
Start Your Disney Vacation
