No Surprise: Bush's Gonzales Balks at Releasing Supreme Court Nominee's Paper Trail

Nope, no surprise here:

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Monday he would have "very serious concerns" about sharing internal documents requested by Senate Democrats in the debate over John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court.

In an interview with Reuters, Gonzales also said the Justice Department does not routinely respond to such requests unless they come from the full Senate Judiciary Committee, which will begin confirmation hearings on Roberts on Sept. 6.

"There's been no formal request by the committee. We normally respond to a formal request by the committee and not by one senator or a group of senators," Gonzales said in the interview as headed to New Orleans to give a speech.

The documents in question, requested Friday by eight Democrats on the panel in a letter to Gonzales, related to 16 cases Roberts was involved in while deputy solicitor general in the early 1990s in the first Bush administration.

They touch on a host of divisive issues including school desegregation, the death penalty, civil rights and a case in which Roberts echoed the administration position that the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion should be overturned.