National Archives to Open Additional Records Relating to Judge John Roberts
Press Release · Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Washington, DC

WHAT: 38,546 pages of presidential records from the Staff Member Office Files of John Roberts, will be opened. 1,708 pages have been withheld from these files under FOIA exemptions. This is the second opening of Roberts’ records in response to requests since the nomination of Judge Roberts to the Supreme Court. Judge Roberts was an Associate Counsel to the President during the Reagan Administration. The total number of pages regarding John Roberts available for research at the Reagan library will be 51,285.

WHERE: These records will be available simultaneously at two locations:

National Archives Building, 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 40 Presidential Drive, Simi Valley, CA

To accommodate the anticipated demand, the research room at the National Archives in Washington, DC will remain open on Thursday until 9:00 PM. Scanners and laptops may be used. Clean research room rules will apply. Given space limitations in Washington, DC teams are limited to three people per media outlet/organization. All researchers must have a current photo ID. In Washington DC, given that only copies of the documents will be available, NARA researcher IDs are not necessary.

WHEN: This group of Roberts’ records from the Reagan Library will open to the public at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST on Thursday, August 18, 2005.

A preliminary inventory of these materials is available online.

Please note that all files on this list that have not been previously released and are not withheld will be released at this time.

BACKGROUND: The requirements for review and release of Presidential records are established by the Presidential Records Act of 1978 and Executive Order 13233. This process is very labor-intensive and requires that National Archives staff conduct a page by page, word for word review of all records in order to protect, as required by law, sensitive information such as national security, personal privacy and law enforcement information. Following the National Archives review, by law, both the representatives of the former and the incumbent Presidents must have an opportunity to review all of the records, to determine if any of them are subject to a constitutionally-based privilege and whether such privilege will be asserted.

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For further information, contact the National Archives Public Affairs Office at 202-501-5526.

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