Posted on 02/11/2004 8:05:39 AM PST by Elkiejg
WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- A key figure in the scandal surrounding the release of documents that suggest Senate Democrats colluded with liberal special interest groups to defeat President Bush's judicial nominees resigned on Monday and immediately filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee.
Manuel Miranda, counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), issued a departure statement explaining that he left his position so that he could "speak freely" about the investigation conducted by Sergeant at Arms William Pickle.
Miranda questioned why the Democrats directed the inquiry to the office of the Sergeant at Arms that had never previously conducted such an inquiry. He also questioned events "that have contaminated and stifled the investigation, and certain improprieties of the investigation toward me from the first day I met with the investigators up to most recent times."
Democrats have bitterly complained that the memos were stolen as the result of computer hacking, but Miranda indicated the access was not unlawful. He claims that his actions were not illegal or unethical since the documents were unprotected on the network.
"I knew that there is no privacy expectation to documents on a government server, documents that are regularly backed up and stored in a government facility," Miranda said. "I knew that these were not confidential or classified documents."
Miranda said he was told that the staff of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) had been informed that their files were unprotected, but did nothing to correct the situation.
Miranda stated that the focus of the investigation needed to return to the substance of the memos that he says detail "abuse of the public trust" by the Democrats. He says that he read only a few of the thousands of the documents downloaded from a server shared by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said his interest in those pages was to learn when hearings would be held on nominees.
Miranda complained, "This was information needlessly withheld from us from the Leahy staff but communicated freely to liberal outside groups so that they could prepare distortions and plan their attacks on judicial nominees."
On that basis, Miranda sent a letter to Robert Walker, Chief Counsel of the Senate Ethics Committee, claiming that unpublished memos contain evidence of public corruption by staffers and elected officials. He wrote that proof of his accusations is on a hard drive that was seized by the Sergeant at Arms.
"The ones made public are the least indicting of the documents I came to see," Miranda said.
Miranda rejects the characterization that the release of the documents is a "leak." He said that the Senate disclosure rule, carefully expanded in the aftermath of the unlawful Democrat disclosures in the Clarence Thomas nomination, makes it clear what is and is not subject to protection.
Miranda recalled that then Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell in his October 8, 1992 statement in the Congressional Record said, "It is the fundamental policy of the Senate to favor openness and public access to information."
Miranda asserts, "Collusive, partisan documents of individual Senators or the party caucuses were oddly enough not covered by the 1992 rule expansion because violating the public trust is not the business of the United States Senate."
"Among the great ironies in this matter is that the two senators most vocal on this matter are currently under investigation for unlawfully leaking truly classified material, while Senator Leahy's history of leaks is pandemic," Miranda says.
Miranda is the second casualty of the controversy.
In January, Elaine Jones, President and Chief Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund announced her retirement after a complaint was filed against her with the Virginia Bar Association for her role in the scandal. Documents show that she sought to delay the confirmation hearing of a judge to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals until after the Michigan affirmative action case, of which she was a participant, was decided.
Another judicial memo to Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) stresses the need to delay action on D.C. Circuit Court nominee Miguel Estrada. The memo labels Estrada as "especially dangerous." Included in the reasons for this label was the fact that Estrada is "Latino."
The staffer wrote in the memo, "They want you to hold off on Estrada as long as possible."
Miguel Estrada has since withdrawn his name from consideration after years of delay and filibusters by Senate Democrats.
In other memos to both Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) Durbin, staffers documented efforts by liberal special interest groups to influence the scheduling of Judiciary Committee hearings in order for the groups to have more time to mount an attack on a particular Bush nominee.
In a memo to Sen. Durbin dated October 15, 2001, a staffer wrote, "The groups are asking that the Committee hold a second hearing on Pickering in a few weeks, when they will have had adequate time to research him fully."
The staffer continued, "The decision to schedule Pickering's hearing was made by Senator Leahy himself, not his staff, so the groups are likely to ask you to intercede personally. They will also seek assurances that they will receive adequate warning of future controversial nominees."
When are the RAT staffers/Senators going to be fired for their role in this mess?
I know it's just confirmation, but....
Never - they've circled the wagons.
The Republicans just can't fight with the same scum tactics.
Seriously though, it looks like he isn't going to let this die - good. The content of the memos needs to become the story, hopefully it soon will. Hatch is a complete pantywaist - I wish Utah could replace him with a conservative with spine and testicles.Either that or one with a spine and real ovaries.
this could get verrrrrry interesting....from what I saw, the Nazi comments and anti-Latino comments were devastating ( as long as they are repeated over & over to the short attention span electorate ). And he says the comments we haven't seen are WORSE! The Dems asked for this investigation - now, let's get it going full steam!
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