WASHINGTON — New details about a memo that was at the center of a debate over President Bush's judicial nominees and theft of Democratic papers from the Senate Judiciary Committee shows the source was a staffer with a vested interest in the outcome.

The memo, written to Sen. Edward Kennedy (search) in April of 2002, recommends delaying the non-controversial nomination of Julia Scott Gibbons (search) to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Officials with the NAACP didn't want an additional conservative judge to weigh in on the then-pending University of Michigan affirmative action case (search).

But a recent report that contains the uncensored version of the document shows that the Kennedy staffer who penned the advice was once an attorney for the NAACP (search) who worked on the University of Michigan case.

Kennedy refuses to discuss the matter and it is unknown whether he ever saw it, but the memo was sent to two Kennedy aides, including Mary Beth Cahill (search), who is now running Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign.