Roberts interviewed by Bush while he ruled terror suspect case in * favor

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he wouldn't answer questions from 25 years ago, but he decided a case in bush's faver while being interviewed for SCOTUS.
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sfgate
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/22/MNG0DERKBJ1.DTL

Roberts' ruling in Bush's favor debated,
Terrorism case came as White House was interviewing him

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, September 22, 2005

There's no dispute that chief justice nominee John Roberts met with high-level White House officials while his appellate court was considering a case of enormous importance to the Bush administration, on the president's power to try battlefield captives and foreign terror suspects before military commissions.

There is considerable dispute, among legal ethics experts as well as supporters and opponents of Roberts, about whether his contacts amounted to a conflict of interest that should have disqualified him from the case.

"A reasonable person might question his impartiality when he sat on an appellate panel that directly and widely expanded the president's powers'' while he was under consideration by the president for a seat on the Supreme Court, said Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents military detainees, in testimony opposing Roberts' nomination.

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As the Senate Judiciary Committee votes today on President Bush's nomination of the 50-year-old federal appeals court judge to succeed the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Roberts' court in Washington, D.C., is weighing a motion by lawyers for a Guantanamo Bay prisoner to set aside its July 15 ruling because of Roberts' participation.

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1. kick