The Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, refused to publicly go into the reasons for the delay. Sources on the Judiciary Committee, however, confirm that the delay is a direct result of concerns that the ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has about Olson and the credibility of some of the answers Olson has given to the committee in official questioning.

Specifically, Leahy has been publicly wondering just how honest Olson has been about his involvement in the "Arkansas Project," the privately funded investigations into the life of Bill Clinton, funded with around $2 million by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife and channeled through two nonprofit organizations run by the American Spectator magazine.

The incident comes at a hairy time for the Judiciary Committee, with serious tensions between Hatch and Leahy, and Democrats' insisting that they have as much of a say in Bush's judicial selections as Republicans had in Clinton appointments.

Olson represented Bush in various courtrooms on behalf of the president's myriad federal cases to stop hand recounts in Florida. Before that, he was a controversial figure with a controversial past. Leahy had asked Olson about his involvement in the Arkansas Project during Olson's April 5 confirmation hearings, as well as in subsequent follow-up written testimony, and apparently he is still not satisfied with the answers he's received.

In a May 4 letter to Olson obtained by Salon, Leahy says that he "remain(s) troubled by your responses and lack of responsiveness." He repeats several questions from previous inquiries, wanting to know "the nature of the various components" of his work for the American Spectator or the Arkansas Project. "Please describe in detail when and how you first became aware of the Arkansas Project."

"The credibility of the person appointed to be the Solicitor General is of paramount importance," Leahy writes. "When arguing in front of the Supreme Court on behalf of the United States Government, the Solicitor General is expected to come forward with both the strengths and the weaknesses of the case, to inform the Court of things it might not otherwise know, and to be honest in all his or her dealings with the Court. I expect that same responsiveness and cooperation from nominees before this Committee."

Olson has claimed that he was only nominally involved in the Arkansas Project. It was reported in Salon that the Arkansas Project was first hatched in a 1994 meeting in Olson's law firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a meeting that Olson has denied having taken place, though he later altered his story, saying he could not recall it having taken place.

Olson claimed during his April 5 confirmation hearing that he was involved in the project "only as a member of the board of directors of the American Spectator" in 1998, when the project was brought to a close. "It has been alleged that I was somehow involved in that so-called project; I was not involved in the project, in its origin or its management."

In follow-up questions to Olson first reported in Salon a week ago, Olson backtracked a bit on this, changing the date he became aware of the Arkansas Project to 1997. He also used evasive language when asked about events prior to 1997 -- reported in the past by Salon -- including legal fees paid by the foundation to Olson's law firm in 1994, Spectator stories negative to Clinton co-authored by Olson under a pseudonym and Olson's representation of David Hale, who testified against Clinton in the Whitewater matter.

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