Alito 'credibility gap' emerging, critics say

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Alito 'credibility gap' emerging, critics say

December 4, 2005

BY DAVID ESPO

WASHINGTON -- Challenging his candor and by implication his character, Samuel Alito's critics are seizing on a handful of inconsistencies and omissions in the record to raise doubts about the judge's fitness for the Supreme Court.

By themselves, the issues seem minor:

*Shifting explanations for Alito's participation in a 2002 case involving the mutual fund company Vanguard. Alito had pledged in 1990 to Congress that he would step aside.

*A statement that Alito did not recall his membership in a controversial conservative Princeton alumni group until recently seeing a document.

*A 1985 Reagan administration legal brief seeking the reversal of a landmark abortion rights case. The material was not sent to the Senate along with other records.

Critics of the federal appeals court judge say they detect a pattern.

''A credibility gap is emerging with each new piece of information released on Judge Alito's record,'' said Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is to start confirmation hearings Jan. 9.

''He bears an especially heavy burden at the hearings in January to explain the growing number of discrepancies between his current statements and his past actions.''

Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, said as more documents about Alito's record become public, ''a disturbing lack of credibility has begun to emerge across a range of key issues.''

Letter doesn't mention pledge to Senate

White House spokesman Steve Schmidt said critics are ''trying to smear a good man.''

The fate of Alito's nomination to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor probably will be determined by his writings and formal rulings on abortion as well as other opinions issued during 15 years on the appeals court. Alito's supporters say that barring an unexpected turn, he will be confirmed.

Ironically, Alito's critics find no fault with the legal opinion in the Vanguard case, and even his six-figure investment in the firm's mutual funds has seemed a secondary concern at times. Not so a commitment to the Judiciary Committee during his appeals court confirmation in 1990. Alito pledged then to disqualify himself from cases involving Vanguard and three other entities. Yet Alito was on a three-judge panel that ruled unanimously in 2002 in favor of Vanguard on a case involving the account of a deceased investor.

Alito wrote the chief judge of the 3rd Circuit that he did not believe he was required to disqualify himself, although he said he was voluntarily stepping aside. The letter did not mention his pledge to the Senate.

'No recollection'

The dispute over an alumni organization is less complex. In 1986, as part of an application for a job in the Reagan administration, Alito stressed his conservative credentials. Among them, he cited his membership in the "Concerned Alumni of Princeton University, a conservative alumni group.''

The group once said school officials had lowered standards to accept female and minority applicants. In completing the committee's questionnaire, Alito stepped carefully around the issue. ''A document I recently reviewed reflects that I was a member of the group in the 1980s,'' he wrote.

''Apart from that document, I have no recollection of being a member, of attending meetings or otherwise participating in the activities of the group.''

A 1985 memo was released separately in which he outlined a legal strategy for eroding and eventually ending abortion rights.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) quickly sought an explanation ''for this omission.'' He wrote Alito asking whether he participated in drafting the appeal in which the Reagan administration sought the reversal.

Schmidt said Alito omitted the case because he neither argued it before the Supreme Court nor signed his name to the legal brief.

A fellow lawyer in the solicitor general's office said he was assigned to write part of the brief and that Alito helped.

AP