ABC:Nicole Belle. Crooks and Liars: Let's count how many disturbing aspects of this story there are: 1) Just five years before being made Chief Justice, Rehnquist was hearing voices and hallucinating while detoxing from his painkiller addiction (Rush can tell you, that's a tough row to hoe); 2) the FBI was used to tamp down possible objections to his appointment, not once, but twice; 3) John Bolton was called in to investigate Democrats on the committee; 4) Even with all this to ponder, there's still other stuff too damaging or classified to release. There's much more, but that's enough to make me a little queasy.The FBI's file on former Chief Justice William Rehnquist made public more than a year after his death indicates the Nixon and Reagan administrations enlisted its help in blunting criticism of him during confirmation hearings.
The file also offers insight into the hallucinations and other symptoms of withdrawal that Rehnquist suffered when he was taken off a prescription painkiller in 1981. A doctor was cited as saying that Rehnquist, an associate justice of the Supreme Court at the time, tried to escape the hospital in his pajamas and imagined that the CIA was plotting against him.
The FBI on Wednesday released 1,561 pages of documents on Rehnquist to The Associated Press, other news organizations and scholars in response to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act following Rehnquist's death in September 2005. An additional 207 pages were withheld under the federal disclosure law, and the FBI said an entire section of his file could not be found.
Much of the FBI's file on Rehnquist appears to have been compiled almost exclusively for his two Senate confirmations his initial nomination to the court by President Nixon in 1971 and his nomination as chief justice by President Reagan in 1986. Administration officials apparently hoped to prevent any surprises from sinking his nominations.
LSB: Part of me agrees with Nicole; part of me says, "Let the man rest in peace."
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