Reagan Administration Spied on Witnesses to Rehnquist's confirmation

Nixon, Reagan Ordered Spying on Rehnquist Witnesses
And finally, newly-released FBI documents reveal both the Nixon and Reagan administrations ordered the monitoring of witnesses set to provide critical testimony about former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. In 1971, the Nixon White House ordered the FBI to run background checks on witnesses in Renquist's initial Senate confirmation hearing. When Renquist was nominated to chief justice fifteen years later, the Reagan administration told the FBI to check on the witnesses and find out what they planned to say. The FBI obtained the names from then-assistant attorney general John Bolton. Bolton was the Bush administration's UN ambassador until last month. The documents also show the FBI was aware in 1971 Rehnquist owned a home in Phoenix that was only allowed to be sold to whites. The clause was only disclosed fifteen years later and Rehnquist claimed he was unaware. The new files also reveal details of Rehnquist's dependency on prescription painkillers. In 1981, doctors reported Rehnquist exhibited severe withdrawal after he stopped receiving the medication. Rehnquist was said to have tried to escape from a hospital stay in his pajamas after convincing himself of a CIA plot against his life. The FBI has withheld an additional two hundred pages in Rehnquist's file and says one entire section cannot be retrieved.

bald_eagle said:
As far as the prohibition against selling the property to non-whites is concerned, that was fairly common. It took a while for them to be universally nullified. It's barely within the realm of possibility that he wasn't aware of it. Most people wouldn't make minute examinations of all of the covenants affecting the property, but then he was a lawyer. We tend to be obsessive-compulsive, looking at title work.

But I can see where he might have gotten the idea there was a plot against him. The drug withdrawal may have contributed, but don't forget one thing. There were government agents poking around; he could have been made aware of them.