Reagan didnt get him on to the court. And immediately everybody started to try everybody started trying to figure out who they were going to blame in the Reagan White House for this political disaster. President reagan today suffered his second defeat in trying to fill a seat on the u. S. Supreme court when the man he nominated only nine days ago, Douglas Ginsburg, asked that his name be withdrawn. It was an embarrassing admission of marijuana use that doomed ginsburg. White house officials knew he could never win confirmation. The frontrunner to become the new nominee is considered to be judge Anthony Kennedy of california. With more on the ginsburg withdrawal, white house corresponde correspondent. Reporter it all happened quickly for Douglas Ginsburg, less than 48 hours from the time he first disclosed he had smoked marijua marijuana, he was at the white house calling it quits. I today have asked Ronald Reagan not to forward my nomination to the court. Late this afternoon, attorney general ed meese, who had pushed hard for the ginsburg nomination, was dodging any blame gl nobody had a candidate. I didnt have one. Howard baker didnt have one. This is something where we had a list of candidates presented to the president. Together we provided the information to him. And he ultimately made the selection. Nobody in the white house is blaming anyone for the ginsburg fiasco but privately many are fwrumbling that the Justice Department didnt do its homework. In the preliminary fbi investigation, ginsburg was never kd if he had ever used drugs, only if he ever abused them or had an addiction problem. Former white house aide david gergen. In this case, the president must look to his Justice Department and say what happened, fellows . Why didnt you do this right . Senior white house aides say the next nominee will likely be Anthony Kennedy, moderate conservative. He had been the choice of chief of staff howard baker, who felt he would be easier to confirm than ginsburg. White house aides hope to announce a new nominee by early next week. They say there will be a preliminary fbi check done before anyone is nominated and at this time the candidate will be asked if he ever used drugs. Robin lloyd, nbc news, at the white house. That was the saturday night newscast on nbc news november 7, 1987, the day that Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg had to withdraw from consideration as a Supreme Court nominee. As i mentioned before, they picked ginsburg before they picked ginsburg for that seat they had previously been thinking about nominating a judge named Anthony Kennedy instead. By the next day, though, after this newscast about ginsburg withdrawing, on november 8th, by then we knew that Anthony Kennedy was already back at the white house. By sunday, that weekend, Anthony Kennedy was at the white house, being subjected to a threehour long interview by a whole panel of senior officials, including the attorney general and white House Counsel and republican leader in the senate. We know that. We know that kennedy was at the white house being interviewed the day after ginsburg withdrew because of notes filed by reagans white House Counsel, which you can now get from the Ronald Reagan president ial library. So, the timeline here was on saturday ginsburg dropped out. Sunday, the very next day, quote, threehour interview of judge kennedy at the white house. Quote, the interview focused solely on personal background and integrity issues. All conceivable no holds barred questions were asked. So that was sunday. All conceivable no holds barred questions being asked. Then on monday and tuesday, quote, in excess of ten hours of fbi interviews of judge kennedy. So, they were not going to let the Douglas Ginsburg mistake happen again. Apparently the fbi background check on Douglas Ginsburg had asked him if he had ever had a drug problem but it had never asked him if he had ever done drugs. Personal background, subsection one, childhood through high school. Did you ever use alcohol . If so, how old were you . How often . At parties . Alone . Did you ever use drugs . How about glue sniffing . Specifically. Did you ever use your parents prescription drugs . Did you attend parties where drugs were used . That typo was actually in the letters the notes. They misspelled parties. And then later on in their questioning they asked again from when kennedy is in college, all the same questions about alcohol, but the drug questions, they change a little bit. Quote, in college, did you ever use drugs . Once again, glue sniffing . Also marijuana, cocaine, et cetera. Did you attend parties, again, misspelled, where drugs were used. Then they asked kennedy about law school. Apparently by the time they got him to law school they thought glue sniffing would no longer be an option. But for his time in law school they again asked him, did you ever use drugs . If so, marijuana, cocaine, et cetera, how often . Did you attend parties where drugs were used . When Ronald Reagans Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg flamed out right before kennedy, it was a big embarrassment for Reagan White House. It was a big political failure, also a big embarrassment for the white house and the president. They decided they would blame the fbi and blame the Justice Department for not having adequately explored all elements of Douglas Ginsburgs background before that nomination was announced. And when they replaced Douglas Ginsburg with a new nominee, with Anthony Kennedy, they made sure there would be no similar embarrassing surprises that arose out of kennedys background. The questions got very, very, very detailed. So ultimately Anthony Kennedy gets confirmed. That was reagans last nominee. Then george h. W. Bush was elected to be the next president. First nominee he put on the Supreme Court was david suitor, who was confirmed without much controversy at the time. Then in 1991, president bush nominated Clarence Thomas. And so by the time thomas is nominated by that point theres a wellestablished expectation that the fbi has to be pretty freaking thorough when it comes to background checks for Supreme Court nominees. Were not going to have another Douglas Ginsburg situation here. All right . What the fbi does with these nominees is not a criminal investigation, like they would do if they were planning to potentially prosecute someone. Its just a review, a very comprehensive review of every little thing in the life history of that nominee, to see if theres any derogatory information that might reflect badly on the character or experience of this nominee. Honestly, remembering that Douglas Ginsburg fiasco, the background check for nominees is also supposed to turn up information that might adversely affect the prospects of confirming that nominee to the court. Thats why the fbi background check on a potential nominee is handed over to the white house, so the white house can then make a decision, based in part on that background check, whether or not they should go ahead and nominate that person for the court. When Clarence Thomas was nominated by president george h. W. Bush in 1991, his former assistant, a lawyer named anita hill, notified the Senate Judiciary committee who was considering his nomination that when she worked for judge thomas, he had sexually harassed her. Now, whether or not that would be considered a crime, whether or not that was considered to be within the statute of limitations for any conceivable crime related to those charges, that wasnt the point. The allegation was, instead, relevant as a factor in his background check. It was relevant to the assessment of judge thomas as a potential Supreme Court nominee. And when the Judiciary Committee received that information from anita hill, that information got sent to the fbi. The Judiciary Committee sent that information to the white house on september 23rd, 1991. That same day, september 23rd, the white House Counsel for president bush, c. Boyden gray, papi bushs lawyer for all four years he was president , they asked him to reopen the fbi investigation of judge thomas to look into this new Sexual Harassment allegation made by anita hill. That moment they get the information, forward it to the white house that same day. The white house tells the fbi, hey, look into this. That was not the stop the presses moment in the anita hill Clarence Thomas controversy. There was not any big fight about this. The white house learned there were new allegations, derogatory information about Clarence Thomas. Since the fbi was in charge of looking into the nominee and documenting potential derogatory information about him the white house, naturally, asked the fbi to look into this new information, too. We actually spoke with c. Boyden gray today about that moment in the Clarence Thomas nomination process. Mr. Gray confirmed for us today this basic timeline about how this went down, basically confirmed the understanding that we have from looking at the historical record that this was this part of it just wasnt a Pivotal Moment in this controversy. The fbi did reopen its Background Investigation of Clarence Thomas to add this matter when the white house asked them to. The fbi, when they received this request from the white house, they went out and interviewed judge thomas about it. They interviewed anita hill about it. C. Boyden gray told us by phone today, quote, what they interviewed anita hill about was the basic facts. The fbi, such as it was, was very basic, very quick. If there was any controversy about it at all, it was that it was too cursory. It was too unimportant. The very same day that white House Counsel c. Boyden gray asked the fbi to go look into this allegation about judge thomas, that exact same day, september 23rd, is when the fbi conducted their interview with anita hill on that issue. Two days later by september 25th, they were done. They didnt produce a conclusive report that even tried to definitively assert whether or not the Sexual Harassment had, in fact, happened. They just put together this very basic report. Basically, yeah, we talked to him. Yeah, we talked to her. This is what they said. That was kind of it. The fbi gave that info back to the white house. The white house gave it back to the committee. Most senators didnt even know that that had happened. Most senators were not terribly moved by the addition by this addition of the body of information they had to work with if they knew about it at all. Thomas confirmation hearings were done. Two days later they turned over their relatively cursory report, the committee voted on Clarence Thomas nomination, 77. That meant his nomination was headed to the floor with an uncertain recommendation. What actually broke this story open the whole reason any of us even know about these allegations and the controversy that ensued is because of nothing to do with the fbi. It has to do with Nina Totenberg, legendary Supreme Court reporter, today and frankly for your whole life. She had been the one in 1987 who broke the news at npr that Douglas Ginsburg had smoked pot. Shes the one who blew up the Douglas Ginsburg nomination. She was also the one four years later who reported that professor anita hill made very serious detailed allegations against judge Clarence Thomas and whether or not most senators even knew about those allegations, the committee had that information and the fbi had even questioned people about those allegations at the white houses request. So the white house knew about it, too. When Nina Totenberg broke the story, thats when the story truly broke for the country. Thats when anita hills allegations came to light in the press. Before the week was up, the committee decided okay, i guess we better reopen the confirmation process for Clarence Thomas and take public sworn testimony from both anita hill and Clarence Thomas. And that hearing, of course, is still seen today as one of the worst examples of how not to treat a person who is coming forward with serious Sexual Harassment allegations. But for all of the controversy, all of the drama, all of the cultural significance and pain and precedent of that unbelievably controversial Supreme Court nomination and that process, the idea that the fbi would take a look, the fbi would interview the principals, talk to other witnesses once that allegation came to light, that was an absolutely mundane part of the process. Of course the fbi had to look into that. They had done a background check on this nominee. Again its not a criminal investigation. Its to find out everything you can, right, about a nominee, see if theres any allegations outstanding out there about a nominee that the white house ought to know about when putting this person forward, that the senate might need to know about when considering this person for a Premium Court justice. Right . When theres a new allegation to add to the universe of information about this nominee, the background check should clearly cover that new allegation, too. That was not a controversial part of the Clarence Thomas anita hill drama. Any controversy over the fbi investigation there was that it was too quick, too cursory, too mundane a part of the process. But for some reason with this nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to fill Anthony Kennedys now vacated seat on the court, republicans in the senate and apparently the white house as well, have decided theyre going to fight tooth and nail to stop that very mundane process from happening this time. Of course this allegation against Brett Kavanaugh is going to be controversial. This Supreme Court nomination was controversial even before we got to this allegation against him. So, of course, with an allegation like this, he is being accused of attempted rape when he was 17 years old. And with an allegation of this nature at a time like this, with stakes this high, of course you expect there to be drama and chest pounding and selfserving arguments and theatrics and all the rest of it. But fighting to make sure the fbi doesnt look into this as part of his background check is a strange thing to fight for. Orrin hatch was on the Judiciary Committee back at the time of the Clarence Thomas anita hill controversy. He has gone so far as to say, quote, the fbi does not do investigations like this. That is exactly wrong. That is 100 completely wrong. I mean, here is senator hatch himself in 1991 in the Clarence Thomas anita hill hearings, expressing his delight, his satisfaction that the fbi was investigating those claims as part of their background check on Clarence Thomas. They immediately ordered this fbi investigation, which was a very right thing to do. Its the appropriate thing to do. Not just right, very right. Which is why it was done then. So when orrin hatch today says the fbi doesnt do investigations like this, honestly, what was he praising back in 1991 . What was he so excited about then if the fbi doesnt actually do this . Being a hypocrite, having a partisan double standard, i understand that is like breathing in politics these days. I get t but flat out asserting, you know, this is not done. It would be crazy. It would be a departure from precedent to have the fbi investigate Something Like this when these guys, themselves, have been through this process before. It just strikes me as odd. Its just a weird place to have a sticking point. This is not a normal kind of fight. Republican senator Chuck Grassley who now runs the Judicial Committee he was there on the committee for the fbi reopening its background check process to look into the anita hill allegations against Clarence T