WASHINGTON — Democrats plan to question Supreme Court nominee John Roberts about a disavowed Justice Department memo that critics say led to torture in foreign prisons, top Senate Judiciary Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont said yesterday.

Leahy said he gave Roberts a copy of the so-called "Bybee memo" during a meeting yesterday. It was the second meeting between the two men since July, when President Bush nominated Roberts to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee argued in a Jan. 22, 2002, memo that the president has the power to issue orders that violate the Geneva Conventions as well as international and U.S. laws prohibiting torture.

"It will be raised, partly on the question of to what area — if any — can a president be considered above the law," Leahy said.

The meeting came as the National Archives released more documents from Roberts' time as a government lawyer in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. In one document, Roberts suggested that a conservative supporter of President Reagan "go soak his head" after he criticized the White House for avoiding a friend's fight with immigration officials.

In other documents, Roberts pushed the Reagan administration to get its conservative policies enacted so future presidents could not readily overturn them. And he showed displeasure with the federal judiciary, saying the Justice Department needs to get legal solutions "less dependent on the fiat of unelected jurists."

Bybee, who is now a federal judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote the now disavowed memo soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Critics in Congress and many legal experts say the original document set up a legal framework that led to abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, in Afghanistan and at the U.S. prison camp for terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The White House says the United States has always operated under the spirit of the Geneva Conventions that prohibit violence, torture and humiliating treatment of prisoners of war.

Leahy said he wanted Roberts to have the memo so he would be prepared for questions at his confirmation hearings, which start Sept. 6. "I don't think a Supreme Court hearing is a game of gotcha," he said. "I'd really like to know what he thinks."