What should happen when one alleged crime uncovers another? Both crimes should be investigated, right? If someone breaks into a house with the intent to steal and stumbles upon a woman stabbing a man repeatedly, it would be ludicrous to believe the thief will be charged but the woman won’t.
It’s a rough analogy, but something similar is afoot in the “Memogate” investigation. By exploiting a computer glitch, Republican staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee accessed the Democrats’ restricted files. Excerpts of some of the memos were reportedly published in “conservative-leaning” newspapers.
In today’s news, the Washington Post reports the findings of William Pickle, Senate Sergeant-at-Arms. The ominous headline reads, “GOP Aides Implicated In Memo Downloads.” Amazingly, the left-leaning Post manages to state the facts fairly objectively:
The report released yesterday by Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William H. Pickle noted that two former Senate GOP staff members — including the Republicans’ top aide on judicial nomination strategy — were primarily responsible for accessing and leaking computer memos on Democratic plans for blocking some of President Bush’s judicial nominations.
First, the Post acknowledges that the files were improperly accessed and leaked. Second, it reports the contents of the memo. Both issues are very important.
Conservative columnist Mychal Massie offers more details:
Purposely overlooked and unreported is the fact that the computer flaw that made the memos public was common knowledge. The memos were stored on a shared computer network used by Judiciary staffers of both parties according to a design put in place by the Democrats when they ran the committee. Liberal staffers neglected to erect a firewall or password-protect their documents. They were also told to keep confidential information on their hard drives.
In the same article, Massie writes about an underreported fact of the investigation. Elaine Jones, former president and director-counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and subject of some of the memos, resigned after conservative groups filed a complaint against her with the Virgina State Bar.
Back in 2002, Jones contacted Sen. Edward Kennedy and asked him to delay hearings on all judicial nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which was considering the constitutionality of the University of Michigan’s undergraduate affirmative action policy. At the time, Jones was counsel to one of the parties in the case!
The complaint alleged that she “intentionally acted to influence and disrupt an impartial tribunal that was then in the deliberative process of considering a landmark constitutional case in which she was counsel to one of the parties.”
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee should be investigated and Jones should be disbarred. Here’s a link to some of the memos.
But here is where I depart with some conservatives. They want the contents of the memos investigated (and I do as well) but seem to downplay what the Republican staffers did.
Manuel Miranda, former Republican Judiciary Committee staff member and counsel to Sen. Bill Frist at the time, knew about the unauthorized access to the files and even read some of the memos. He resigned from Frist’s office on February 9 as a result of the investigation.
In Clintonian language, Miranda writes, “I also considered and studied the propriety or ethics of reading these documents. I knew that in legal ethics there is no absolute prohibition on reading opposition documents inadvertently disclosed…”
In my assessment, Manuel Miranda’s head properly rolled.
The files were not password-protected and the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee knew about the flaw. Technically, the files weren’t broken into or hacked. But does that mitigate what the staffers did? The acts may not be criminal but certainly are unethical.
Think about it. If Democratic staffers had accessed Republicans’ files, we’d all be demanding a criminal investigation. Wrong is wrong.
The whole thing stinks. The investigation is distracting. The more Republicans try to defend what the staffers did or excuse it, the tougher it will be for conservatives to be taken seriously on other issues (more so than we already are). It’s a matter of character and integrity.
My guess is those involved were caught up in the intrigue and secrecy of it all and too overzealous for the Republican cause.
What’s your opinion?
