Report on Judiciary memo snooping likely topic of Thursday meeting

Associated Press ^ | March 3, 2004 | Jesse Holland

[ConservativeGadfly]

From the AP:

_________________________________________________________

Report on Judiciary memo snooping likely topic of Thursday meeting

JESSE J. HOLLAND,

Associated Press

March 3, 2004

Senate investigators wrapped up their probe Wednesday into how Democratic computer memos on judicial nominees got into GOP hands as senators prepared for a public debate on who's to blame.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and ranking Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont got a private briefing by Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle and his investigators. The committee is expected to hash out the report at a Thursday hearing.

But it was not yet clear when or if the report, which investigators have been compiling since November, would be publicly released. The committee might discuss the report in a closed meeting before considering a public release, Hatch said Wednesday.

Hatch began the investigation after Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., 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 by The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times.

Conservatives have talked up the memos as proof the Democrats colluded with outside liberal groups in their choices of which Bush appellate nominees to block, and at least one ethics complaint has been filed against Durbin based on the leaked information.

Working with Secret Service agents and General Dynamics computer technicians, investigators have conducted more than 100 interviews and seized several computers.

Senators said last month that preliminary information from Pickle's investigators showed that the computer intrusion went on for at least two years starting in 2001, and that thousands of documents were downloaded.

Only a small number of Senate Republican staffers were involved, and no senators were, Judiciary committee members said. However, Democrats still want to know if the White House, the Justice Department or any of President Bush's judicial nominees from that time period used the information to anticipate Democratic questions and attacks.

And some senators have suggested that Republican computer files might also have been snooped into as well.

Two Senate employees, an unnamed Hatch staffer and Manuel Miranda, who worked for Hatch and then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., left because of the investigation.

Miranda, who said he read the Democratic memos but has denied breaking into the Democratic computers, has said he did nothing wrong or illegal. But Democrats, Hatch and several Republican senators have criticized him for reading the confidential documents.

[ConservativeGadfly]

Get ready to rumble.

[ConservativeGadfly]

PING!!!

[boomop1]

Hatch will apologize just for the heck of it, can't we just get along, NO.

[ConservativeGadfly]

I was fascinated to note that the other day Hatch was quoted in the Deseret News saying that "conservative groups inside the beltway" needed to "grow up" and recognize that "there is a difference between right and wrong."

Yes, Senator, there is a difference between right and wrong. The difference is that we don't take our cues on the whole right/wrong thing from Ted Kennedy.

[ConservativeGadfly]

Free the Miranda memos BUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!

[RightWingMama]

If Patrick Leahy knows about it, we'll hear all the details tomorrow. He has a hard time keeping his mouth shut.

[Dog]

Not likely.....Hatch will cave and give Leahy what he wants.

[ConservativeGadfly]

Yep. Ol' Leaky Leahy. Was kicked off the Intell Committee in the late 80's cause of his propensity to leak.

Would be worth the price of admission just to watch Kennedy torque into orbit on this....twisting himself into a pretzel trying to spin this as somehow "criminal."

Make no mistake -- their press releases have been written for weeks. They are determined that they are going to try to divert attention away from the content of the memos.

[ConservativeGadfly]

When I say, "get ready to rumble", I am not referring to Senator Hatch.

Oh no, my friend, I know better than that.

Let's just say it was sort of a "note to self."

[ConservativeGadfly]

bump!!!!!!

[Cicero]

Hatch seems like a good conservative until it comes to the crunch, and then somehow or other he always does the wrong thing. He inevitably lets the side down when it really counts.

[ConservativeGadfly]

Paul Weyrich of Free Congress Foundation calls it a "congenital need to be liked."

Not sure myself what it is. During the Miguel Estrada debate on the floor, there was no one who pushed harder for him and no one who stayed longer in the fight -- and he did it with a couple of herniated disks.

Darned if I understand this, though.

[irv]

Conservatives have talked up the memos as proof the Democrats colluded with outside liberal groups in their choices of which Bush appellate nominees to block

"reported" as if it's not possible to go back to the WSJ coverage and see what the leaked memos actually said.

I work at a newspaper (not in news) and am continuously embarrassed by the state of the journalism industry.

[ConservativeGadfly]

Want to see the memos, Irv?

Go to my website -- www.fairjudiciary.com -- the fourteen original memos are there. But there are apparently more that haven't been released.

[abner]

FREE THE DANG MEMOS ALREADY!

This is good news...

[irv]

Want to see the memos, Irv?

That was my point: That it's easy to find out what's in the memos. But the *&^!$%@ press acts like the only thing they have to go on is what somebody says about them. They don't even do the most basic homework!

I know better than to expect anything else, but it still annoys the hell out of me.

[diotima]

ping

[ConservativeGadfly]

I agree wholeheartedly. Wasn't what I learned in J School.

Literally, I never cease to be amazed at the inaccuracy displayed in just about every story.

[Bob J]

...there is a difference between right and wrong...

What Hatch has forgotten is there is an even larger and difference between right and left.

[ConservativeGadfly]

hey.....i pinged you first!!!