Taxable Talk

Hugh Hewitt asked bloggers if they would be interested in reviewing one of 136 boxes released by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Having some interest in history, and quite a bit of curiosity as to what might be in a box of old White House Counsel documents, I ended up looking at “Box 30: JGR/Judges (9)”.

The box contains two items. First, Daniel Popeo of the Washington Legal Foundation sent a paper titled “The President’s Power to Appoint Federal Judges: A Popular Check on Court Usurpations” by Bruce E. Fein (Fein was a Deputy Attorney General under President Reagan, and is now a constitutional lawyer and international consultant with Bruce Fein & Associates and the Litchfield Group). A quick Google search disclosed that Fein thinks Iraq will dissolve into a quagmire and that President Bush should appoint judges that are “philosophical clones of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and defeated nominee Robert H. Bork.” But I digress…

Fein’s paper urges then President Reagan to examine, in depth, the qualifications of his judicial appointments and make sure that they match his philosophy. It appears that this paper was sent to John Roberts, but whether he read it or not there’s nothing here which will serve as fodder against his appointment.

Then there’s actually a memo written by John Roberts. Apparently it’s against either the law or policy for the White House to send “get well” messages to sitting judges. John Roberts responded to a request for a get well message to a Judge Wangelin of Missouri.

And that’s the box. There’s absolutely nothing here in this non-attorney’s view that could be used for or against Judge Roberts in his confirmation hearings.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2005 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Taxable Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.