Does Judicial Nominee Jack McConnell Have an Ethics Problem?

That's the case Senator John Cornyn (R, Tex.) makes against Jack McConnell, Obama's nominee to serve on the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island:

[W]hen Mr. McConnell came before the Senate Judiciary Committee [he] was asked about his familiarity with a set of stolen legal documents his law firm obtained during litigation against lead-paint manufacturers. Responding to questioning, Mr. McConnell indicated to the committee that he saw the documents "briefly" but was not familiar with them "in any fashion." Yet only a few months later, Mr. McConnell testified in a deposition that he was the first lawyer to receive the documents in question, had drafted a newspaper editorial citing information from the documents, and reviewed and filed a legal brief under his signature incorporating the stolen documents. It is clear to me that Mr. McConnell deliberately misled the Senate by trying to downplay his role in this controversy.

Legal Newsline's John O'Brien has more details on McConnell and the case of the stolen documents here.McConnell seems to be a pretty hardcore liberal--he served as the director of Planned Parenthood in Rhode Island for 4 years and has been a member of Amnesty International since 1989. And he and his wife have contributed nearly $700,000 to Democrats over two decades. But the charge that McConnell lied to the Senate could be what leads to a successful filibuster of his nomination later today. Correction: I originally reported that McConnell served as a Planned Parenthood director for 14 years, rather than 4.