Newly released FBI documents reveal how the Nixon and Reagan administrations used the FBI to intimidate witnesses set to testify against the late chief justice William Rehnquist at his confirmation hearings. The documents also reveal Rehnquist’s dependency on pain medication once led him to try to escape a hospital stay in his pajamas after convincing himself of a CIA plot against his life. We speak with the reporter who broke the story. [includes rush transcript] Newly released FBI documents reveal dramatic details about former Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s two confirmation battles and his 1981 hospitalization and dependence on a painkiller. The documents show that both the Nixon and Reagan administrations ordered the monitoring of witnesses set to provide testimony critical of Rehnquist during his 1971 and 1986 confirmation process. The documents also reveal that during Rehnquist’s 1981 hospital stay, doctors reported that he exhibited severe withdrawal after he stopped receiving the highly toxic drug Placidyl. Rehnquist was said to have had hallucinations and once tried to escape from the hospital in his pajamas after convincing himself of a CIA plot against his life. The FBI released 1,561 pages of documents on Rehnquist in response to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act following Rehnquist’s death in September 2005. They’ve withheld an additional two hundred pages in the file and say one entire section cannot be retrieved. Tony Mauro is with us now from Washington D.C. -- He is the Supreme Court correspondent for the Legal Times. Tony was the reporter who filed the Freedom of Information Act requests on Rehnquist.

• Tony Mauro. Supreme Court correspondent for the Legal Times.

Read Tony Mauro’s article here and Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez’s article on the Rehnquist revelations here.