Emotions run high in Alito hearing’s 3rd day

updated 9:45 p.m. ET Jan. 11, 2006

WASHINGTON - With Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito watching the theatrics from his chair, two senior senators on Wednesday engaged in a fiery exchange over a request for records tied to Alito’s membership to a Princeton alumni group more than 30 years ago.

Questions about Alito’s membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a group that at the time tried to limit entry to Princeton by minorities and women, led to the exchange between Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

Last month, Kennedy sent a letter to Specter seeking a committee subpoena for private documents of William A. Rusher, a founder of the group, that Kennedy said might shed light on Alito’s membership when he attended Princeton.

Specter said he had not received the letter and bristled at Kennedy’s pledge to push repeatedly for a committee vote on a subpoena.

“I will not have you run this committee,” said Specter, who brushed aside Kennedy’s threats.

Kennedy later submitted for the record a letter from Specter’s staff responding to Kennedy’s letter.

Report at odds with nominee’s recall
Alito, for his part, reiterated earlier statements that he had no recollection of his membership, which he listed on a job application. “If I had been involved actively in any way in the group, I’m sure that I would remember,” Alito said.

Alito's lack of recall is at odds with a Nov. 18 report in the Daily Princetonian newspaper. The story states that Alito, in the process of completing a “Personal Qualifications Statement” as part of an application for a job in Ronald Reagan's Justice Department, wrote that he was “a member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton University, a conservative alumni group.”

Interviews with alumni who were contemporaries of Alito at Princeton told the Daily Princetonian they recalled the group “as a far right organization funded by conservative alumni committed to turning back the clock on coeducation at the University.”

Criticism gets personal
The emotions spilled over again later Wednesday when Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., offered a tribute to Alito, one that alluded to the criticism of Alito’s past and his character.

“Judge Alito, I am sorry that you’ve had to go through this. I am sorry that your family has had to sit here and listen to this,” Graham said.

As Graham praised “the way you’ve lived your life and the way you’ve raised your children” and spoke of “the law clerks — men and women, black and white” who had praised the nominee, Alito's wife, Martha-Ann Bomgardner, who had sat behind her husband for hours of questioning over several days, broke down in tears. She later left the hearing room.

Moments earlier, the senator had asked Alito, “Are you really a closet bigot?” The nominee said no, and Graham said, “No sir, you’re not.”

Graham’s exchange with the nominee came after withering questions from several Judiciary Committee Democrats.

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah suggested that Alito’s wife was upset with the comments of Democrats. “She’s sick and tired of the mistreatment of her husband,” Hatch said. He also said that she was suffering from a migraine headache.

She returned to the hearing room after a committee break, smiling and holding her husband’s hand.

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