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Investigation Urged Into Phone Warning by Committee Aide to Pro-Bork Witness

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Associated Press

A telephone warning from a Senate Judiciary Committee aide to a black law professor supporting Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork was “reminiscent of the ugly tactics of the Ku Klux Klan,” Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey (R-N.H.) said Sunday.

Humphrey, a Bork supporter and a member of the committee, called for an investigation of the incident as the Senate prepared to debate the nomination this week.

Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) said debate on Bork could start Tuesday, but indicated he might remove the nomination from the agenda if arguments go on too long.

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John T. Baker, an Indiana University law professor, had been scheduled to testify before the Judiciary Committee in support of Bork on Sept. 28, but withdrew after receiving a telephone call from committee aide Linda Greene the night before, according to a published report Sunday.

Humphrey called on Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) “to conduct an immediate investigation to determine whether this aide was acting under instructions or encouragement of her superiors.”

“This intimidation of a witness, whether friendly or unfriendly to the nominee, is offensive, unethical and unfair,” Humphrey said in a statement. “ . . . Intimidation of a black witness is reminiscent of the ugly tactics of the Ku Klux Klan.”

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Greene, who is also black, said she knew Baker and warned him to expect a tough examination of his academic career and scholarship, but she denied her intent was to dissuade him from testifying, according the New York Times. She characterized it as a call to a professional associate whom she regarded as a friend.

“I told him: ‘People are playing hardball,’ ” Greene said. “I asked him if he was prepared to go through tough questioning he was going to get.”

Baker told the newspaper that Greene, counsel to a Judiciary subcommittee headed by Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), played a role in changing his mind, but he said there was no intimidation or harassment.

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Peter Harris, Metzenbaum’s chief aide, said Sunday that Greene’s statement to the newspaper--that neither Metzenbaum nor other committee members knew of her call or urged her to make it--was accurate.

He quoted Metzenbaum, who is strongly opposed to the nomination, as saying: “This shows how desperate the White House has become.”

“Having failed to convince the United States Senate that Judge Bork should be a justice of the Supreme Court, the White House is now engaged in a frantic effort to divert attention and blame,” Metzenbaum said in the statement.

“The issue is Judge Bork’s record and views, not a private conversation between two longtime friends,” he said.

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