National Archives launches formal investigation into missing Roberts file News
National Archives launches formal investigation into missing Roberts file

[JURIST] The National Archives [official website] began an investigation Wednesday into the disappearance of a file containing papers authored by US Supreme Court nominee John Roberts [JURIST news archive] on affirmative action. Officials said the file disappeared [Washington Post report] from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California after two lawyers from the White House and Justice Department reviewed and returned it in July. An official in charge of the presidential libraries said that the file was simply misplaced and has been reconstructed [Scripps Howard report] as best as possible; another official said the disappearance was the archive agency's fault [UPI report]. The National Archives has also announced that more Roberts documentation will be made public [press release] Thursday. The New York Times has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Ku Klux Klan founded

The US hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan was founded on December 24, 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee as a reaction to reconstruction efforts following the Union victory in the American Civil War. The group would later become notorious for its attacks on Black Americans, being targeted by the Enforcement Act of 1871, which imposed civil and criminal liability for deprivation of constitutional rights. Read the Enforcement Act of 1871.  

Hamid Karzai born

On December 24, 1957, Hamid Karzai was born in Karz, Afghanistan. He would go on to become in 2004 his country's first elected president after the end of Taliban rule in 2001.