Packwood Asks Rehnquist to Put Hold on Diaries

Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) asked Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on Friday to block the transfer of his diaries to the Senate Ethics Committee while he appeals the panel’s subpoena.

Packwood’s emergency petition said he “is being made subject to an unreasonable search and seizure of his private personal papers.”

A federal judge earlier this month ordered the diaries turned over to the committee. It is investigating allegations that the senator made unwanted sexual advances to more than two dozen women, used his staff to intimidate witnesses, solicited job offers from lobbyists for his wife and obstructed the investigation by altering the diaries.

A delay would be crucial to Packwood because the diaries have not been turned over to the committee.

The audio tapes and transcripts first must be reviewed by Packwood and a neutral arbiter.

Packwood’s lawyer, Jacob A. Stein, said in court papers that he did not expect any attempt to give the diaries to the committee before Tuesday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused on Feb. 18 to block the order by U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, saying that Packwood had not met the requirements for such a delay.

Court papers filed by Packwood’s lawyers said the subpoena violates his right of privacy under the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment as well as his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

If a delay is not granted, “the issues on appeal will be moot long before oral argument” before the appeals court, Stein wrote.

“The central issue here is whether a truly personal diary is a writing entitled to Fifth Amendment protection,” Stein added. “There is no authority holding that it is not so entitled.”

Packwood initially gave the committee his diaries, but cut off access to those from 1989 to the present after the panel found entries that showed lobbyists and a businessman offered his wife a job during their divorce proceedings.

The committee subpoenaed the diaries last Oct. 20. Packwood gave them to Jackson in December under orders from the judge.