(AP) Two Democratic senators said Wednesday that they want Supreme Court nominee John Roberts to explain before his confirmation hearings why he continued to judge a lawsuit against the Bush administration while being interviewed to be a justice.

"It is clear that you have long understood the ethical issues raised by continuing to work on a case in which a party is considering you for another position," Judiciary Committee Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin said in a letter to Roberts.

White House spokesman Steve Schmidt said in response that "the opponents of Judge Roberts are increasingly grasping at straws trying to find a rationale for opposing him."

Roberts, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, was nominated by President Bush to the nation's highest court on July 19.

That month, Roberts sat on a three-judge panel that refused to block military tribunals for terror suspects. A lawsuit against the administration was brought by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who once was al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's driver.

But three months earlier, in April, Roberts had begun interviewing with administration officials for a possible Supreme Court spot, according to his questionnaire submitted to the Senate.

He recently recused himself from a case involving the American Bar Association, Feingold and Schumer said, presumably because the ABA was preparing its rating of him for his Supreme Court nomination.

"Why did you believe it was appropriate to continue participating in the Hamdan case while being interviewed for a vacancy on the Supreme Court?" the Democratic senators asked in the letter.

The senators said Roberts' answers will determine whether they bring the issue up at his confirmation hearings beginning Sept. 6.

"During the entire history of the United States there is no precedent for recusal because an individual has the potential to maybe be nominated" to the Supreme Court, Schmidt said. "What is disturbing about Sen. Schumer and Sen. Feingold's request is how infused with politics it is."

Later Wednesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she would continue trying to get some idea of Roberts' views on the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

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