Sen. Orrin Hatch
Posted on 02/07/2004 1:12:11 PM PST by glock rocks
Hatch's handling of hacking decried
Should have hurt Demos -- not GOP, conservatives say
By Lee Davidson
Deseret Morning News
WASHINGTON -- A chorus of conservative groups say Sen. Orrin Hatch's attempts to appease Democrats converted a "smoking gun" supposedly proving Democratic corruption of judicial confirmations into a bomb wounding only Republicans.
Sen. Orrin Hatch |
"They are definitely making them scapegoats, and hanging them out to dry," complained Jeff Mazella, executive director of the conservative Center for Individual Freedom, about Hatch and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
"They hope that will just make the issue (of hacking) go away. But I don't know why they have never called for investigations into the content of those memos," he said. "They show how Democrats have corrupted the process. They prove special interests have full control over committee Democrats and are pulling their puppet strings."
At issue are Democratic memos leaked last year to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times. They showed, for example, that Democrats and liberal groups worked together to target Hispanic nominee Miguel Estrada specifically because they did not want Republicans to make political gains with Hispanics.
Another memo showed that staffers for Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., sought to delay confirmation of two nominees to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals specifically to ensure that court would still have a liberal majority when it heard a key Michigan affirmative action case.
When the leaks emerged, Kennedy and Dick Durbin, D-N.Y., howled that the only way such information could have gone to the press would be if someone had hacked into their Judiciary Committee computer files to get it. Hatch, chairman of the committee, at their request launched a probe into whether anyone on staff had done so.
Last November, Hatch announced he was "shocked and mortified" to find that at least one GOP committee staffer had improperly accessed the files and had been placed on administrative leave. That junior aide has never been identified, but others have said the aide was from Utah and has since quit.
The next casualty was Miranda, a former Judiciary Committee aide who was a legal counsel to Frist overseeing judicial confirmations. He told the Knoxville News Sentinel
he left "so as not to distract the majority leader from pursuing the needed legislative agenda . . . I certainly did not want to burden Sen. Frist with matters related to my work on the staff of Sen. Orrin Hatch."
"Hatch took the bait of Democrats, hook, line and sinker and changed the subject. They should be looking at the content of the memos. It show the corruption of the judicial confirmation system. That is not a small thing," complained Kay Daly, president of the conservative Coalition for a Fair Judiciary.
She said talk is that no laws were broken by GOP staffers and that a glitch in committee computer systems allowed GOP staffers to easily view the memos. She said she is especially sad to see Miranda go.
"He was the victim of a witch hunt. He was incredibly effective at his job, and Democrats wanted to see him go," she said. "A couple of staffers saw the memos and realized the level of collusion going on . . . Rather than pinning a medal on them, they are looking for the highest tree to hang them from."
Adam Elggren, spokesman for Hatch, said the senator will not comment on the ongoing probe by the Senate sergeant at arms into the hacking. He released a statement from Hatch in defense of attacks coming from the political right.
"I have always been known as a straight shooter," Hatch said. "I'm going to do what's right, not what might be politically expedient in the short term."
But Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, said, "I am outraged how he has handled it. It is about as bad as can be . . . Hatch seems much more interested in having (ranking committee Democrat Patrick) Leahy love him than in doing justice or having the respect of his Republican colleagues."
Weyrich, whose financial support helped Hatch in his first run for the Senate back in 1976, said, "Nothing surprises me any more with Hatch. I just expect nothing from him, and that's what I get. I don't ever expect him to do what's right, and I'm not disappointed. Weyrich has recently criticized Hatch for his stand on such matters as fetal tissue research.
Other conservatives who have attacked Hatch on the hacking matter range from the Law Enforcement Alliance of America to national radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
I imagine the same could be said of all the inhabitants of Capitol Hill.
The problem is that if word got out that a Republican senator was, for instance, porking an underage intern of the same sex, it would ruin him, while the same revelation about a democrat senator would boost his popularity amoung his constituents.
Former Frist staffer files ethics complaint over Democratic tactics
ROBERT GEHRKE, Associated Press Writer
Friday, February 6, 2004
(02-06) 16:02 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --
A former aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist who resigned amid an investigation into Democratic strategy memos leaked to the media filed a Senate ethics complaint Friday alleging "public corruption" by Democratic senators and staff.
Manuel Miranda said in a letter to Robert Walker, the Senate Ethics Committee's chief counsel, that the memos show "a violation of the public trust in the judicial confirmation process on the part of Democratic senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee."
"This includes evidence of the direct influencing of the Senate's advice and consent role by the promise of campaign funding and election support in the last midterm election," wrote Miranda, who handled judicial nominations for Frist.
Miranda formally resigned his post in Frist's office on Friday. He had been on administrative leave pending the result of an investigation into whether Republican staffers violated any laws or Senate rules in obtaining the memos.
In his letter to the committee, Miranda said the Democratic memos contain "documents evidencing public corruption by elected officials and staff of the United States Senate."
David Carle, a spokesman for Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's ranking Democrat, said there was a "whiff of desperation" in the letter from Miranda, whom he described as "someone who has just resigned in the midst of an investigation about theft and wrongdoing."
"There also is no small irony in his accusations, considering that his very job was to plot strategy with outside, right-wing Republican groups," Carle said.
Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, began the investigation in November after Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts protested what they said was the theft of the memos from their computer servers.
The memos, concerning political strategy on blocking confirmation of several of President Bush's judicial nominations, were obtained and reported on by The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times.
Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has been working with the Secret Service and outside investigators since November to determine how the Democratic memos got to Republicans. Pickle's investigation is expected to be completed within the next few weeks.
Hatch placed one of his aides on leave late last year for improperly obtaining data from the computer networks of the two Democratic senators. That aide, who has not been identified, left government work and returned to school.
Better yet has she, in the past, amended it? ; )
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