Quote :

"The FBI's file on former Chief Justice William Rehnquist -- made public more than a year after his death -- offers insight into 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."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/01/04/rehnquist.files.ap/index.html?rss

Here are some of the highlights among the stuff that wasn't redacted:

Quote :

"In 1971, Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst directed the FBI to conduct investigations of witnesses who were planning to testify at a Senate hearing against Rehnquist's confirmation. Fifteen years later, during the Reagan administration, the FBI was enlisted to conduct background checks on witnesses who were scheduled to testify against Rehnquist's nomination to become chief justice."

Quote :

"The documents show that the FBI was aware in 1971 that Rehnquist had owned a home in Phoenix with a deed that allowed him to sell only to whites. The restrictive covenant was not disclosed until his 1986 confirmation hearings, at which Rehnquist said he became aware of the clause only days earlier. Also detailed in the declassified file was Rehnquist's 1981 hospital stay for treatment of back pain and his dependence on powerful prescription pain-relief medication. The FBI investigated his dependence on Placidyl, which Rehnquist had taken for at least 10 years, according to a summary of a 1970 medical examination. When Rehnquist checked into a hospital in 1981 for a weeklong stay, doctors stopped administering the drug, causing what a hospital spokesman at the time said was a "disturbance in mental clarity." The FBI file, citing one of his physicians, said Rehnquist experienced withdrawal symptoms that included trying to escape the facility and discerning changes in the patterns on the hospital curtains. The justice also thought he heard voices outside his room discussing various plots against him. The doctor said Placidyl is a highly toxic drug and that she could not understand why anyone would prescribe it, especially for long periods. Prior to his hospitalization, Rehnquist occasionally slurred his speech in his questions to lawyers at Supreme Court arguments. Those problems ceased when he changed medications, the doctor said."

Quote :

"In one previously secret memo from 1971, an FBI official wrote, "No persons interviewed during our current or 1969 investigation furnished information bearing adversely on Rehnquist's morals or professional integrity; however ..." The next third of the page is blacked out, under the disclosure law's exception for matters of national security."

1/4/2007 9:03:59 PM

speaking ill of the dead, are we?

1/4/2007 10:50:30 PM

Yawn

1/4/2007 10:51:34 PM

oh well...bill clinton still wins

1/4/2007 10:56:48 PM

omg, this changes everything.

1/4/2007 11:02:06 PM

i've always been a supporter of releasing personal medical information for partisan gain

1/4/2007 11:05:12 PM

rehnquist did drugs in the 70's...WHO DIDNT?!

bill clinton got his DICK SUCKED

1/4/2007 11:20:42 PM

well, because you're a nerd, i can see how you'd think that getting your dick sucked was totally rare and hard to come by

1/5/2007 1:27:06 AM

if you think doing drugs is cooler than getting your dick sucked, you are a fucking queer

1/5/2007 1:32:04 AM

sorry, but queer's no perjorative to me

1/5/2007 8:27:58 AM

im glad the people interpreting our laws are high all the time.

Id rather have a chick hanging off his dick 24/7 while he lies about it.

1/5/2007 11:02:18 AM

Wow, so even when he was "high" he was much more intelligent than most people. Impressive.

1/5/2007 11:14:25 AM

Now all the drug smokers are in here bitching about his drug use and how it impairs his ability decades later to make legal decisions...

This is rich.

1/5/2007 11:21:29 AM

I find it kind of ironic that Rehnquist's file was released for the public to view not long after his death, but when questions were brought out about Martin Luther King's file it was declared classified for many years.

1/6/2007 9:46:07 AM

how is that ironic?

1/6/2007 11:58:10 AM

^^ What role do you think the FBI's attempts to blackmail MLK into quitting his movement and/or committing suicide played in their decision to classify his file?

1/10/2007 9:57:46 AM

Our drug policy in this country is utter bullshit.

1/10/2007 10:36:37 AM

To add insult to injury, we've got high judges interpreting these already mentally-inefficient policies...

1/10/2007 11:05:26 AM

I was gonna make a decision, but then I got high...

1/12/2007 2:35:58 PM