| Just what was Mr. Miranda's job - wasn't it coordinating the efforts of the senate & outside groups in getting nominees consented to?
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Posted on 02/06/2004 10:01:35 AM PST by xsysmgr
Manuel Miranda, the Senate staffer who until today was Majority Leader Bill Frist's top adviser on judicial nominations, has left his post with a massive parting blast that should put to shame Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch.
The substance of his contentions — that Democratic senators engaged in violations of the public trust that may be legally actionable — makes Hatch's utter capitulation to Democrat demands look craven by comparison.
Miranda's letter to the Senate ethics committee, drafted earlier this week and delivered this morning, alleges that a series of Democratic memoranda that were not (and have not been) leaked will show evidence of leftist groups' "direct influencing of the Senate's advice and consent rule by the promise of campaign funding and election support in the last mid-term election."
One source — not the Miranda letter — says that the unreported memos also contain more examples of the merely distasteful variety of comments, as in pointedly noting for whatever reason that now-confirmed nominee Dennis Shedd is "a Southern white male."
Miranda's complaint of Democratic ethics violations comes on top of 14 previously leaked memos that Republicans say show collusion between Senate Democrats and those leftist groups. In one of those first set of memos, Democrats indicated former federal judicial nominee Miguel Estrada should be opposed because "he is Latino."
Here's where Hatch's judgment comes into question. First, let it be understood that the substance of the infamous 14 Democratic memos is highly embarrassing to Senate Democrats, and serious enough in itself that Hatch should have ordered an investigation into the Democratic activities described therein. But now we learn that Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle, under Hatch's direction, has possession of a hard drive containing dozens, perhaps even more than a hundred, other memos, including some that Miranda says are even more damning than the reported memos. And what was Hatch doing?
Investigating only the Republican staff for its alleged role in leaking the documents, without publicly giving a second thought to looking into the Democratic skullduggery as well.
The Nov. 20 letter Hatch sent to Mr. Pickle demanded an investigation so broad-ranging as to virtually hand the keys to the kingdom, as it were, to ranking Judiciary Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Hatch demanded the "retrieval of the old hard drives of the servers that were recently replaced," and asked "that Senator Leahy and I be given an opportunity to review and comment upon the scope of work contained in any contract you negotiate" in pursuance of the investigation. In short, in the course of trying to find out which Republican accessed the Democratic memos, Hatch might effectively allow the Democrats to review Republican documents as well.
In the same Nov. 20 letter, Hatch repeatedly condemns, in advance of the investigation's own findings, the leaking of the Democratic memos. Noting complaints from Democratic Sens. Leahy, Kennedy, and Durbin, Hatch wrote: "I agree with their assessment that this is a very serious matter which deserves immediate attention." Later he confesses "the serious nature of the allegation." And Hatch's public comments have repeatedly echoed these condemnations.
Which may be all well and good. One man's noble "whistleblower" may be another man's unprincipled political operative. But nowhere — not once — did Hatch demand an investigation of the major improprieties evidenced in the Democratic memoranda themselves.
Miranda's allegations are serious. And they raise this question: If Hatch (and Frist, for that matter) is willing to forfeit Miranda's scalp to the Democrats, why did he not demand a scalp in return? Or, better yet, why not demand that the Democrats relinquish a hostage? "You want Miranda?" he should have asked. "The man doesn't appear to have broken any laws. I'll give you Miranda only if you agree to drop your filibuster of one of our nominees."
All of which, of course, applies only if Hatch and Frist were willing to sacrifice Miranda at all.
Nobody knows for sure, of course, what the Pickle investigation will say about Miranda's activities. But it's already clear from the published memos that the Democrats used sleazy methods aplenty to block judicial nominees. And if Miranda's new allegations are accurate — allegations that Pickle can easily check if he's ordered to do so — then the unpublished memos could show still worse Democratic behavior.
If Hatch doesn't play a little hardball of his own, he'll have lots to answer for. Conservatives will have a field day putting his letter to Pickle, so obsequious to Democratic sensibilities, next to Miranda's letter alleging Democratic activities far worse than "leaks" of unclassified, unprotected documents.
The whole battle over judicial nominations long ago turned sleazy, with plenty of allegations back and forth. Why Orrin Hatch should sweep the Democrats' sleaze under the rug is both a mystery and a shame.
— Quin Hillyer is an editorial writer and columnist for the Mobile Register.
| Just what was Mr. Miranda's job - wasn't it coordinating the efforts of the senate & outside groups in getting nominees consented to?
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Hatch is just blazingly stupid. He's a joke.
| one of the big stinks about the dem memos is that they revealed the dems were talking to outside groups about nominations
That would be two profoundly misleading Democratic Party talking points attributable to you in the same note. No employee of the United States has an obligation to remain silent about criminal behavior that they have witnessed, and certainly not when the behavior goes to corruption in the performance of an elected official's duties. |
Irritation at feigned ignorance of how criminal charges are brought under our system, combined with strengthing of suspicion that respondent is spewing misleading noise for dishonest reasons.
Laughter at transparent attempt to posit moral equivalence between soliciting bribes and "outside contacts" in general.
Walking by your open window and viewing you in the act of repeatedly slamming your child into a wall imposes a moral obligation on me to report what I have seen, even though doing so is, on its face, a violation of your privacy.
Besides which, it is fundamentally dishonest — and an attempt to trade on ignorance — to position as "theft" the use, for any reason, of the work product of government employees engaged in the performance of their duties. There is not, and cannot be under our law, a private property right to such works.
The idea of "ownership" of written materials is handled under our system by copyright law. 17USC Section 1.105 states
Yes. So it's not like the guy didn't deserve to get fired, never mind the memos. Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government The works might be classified under certain statutes having to do with national security, but these were not. And in any case, that is still not a property right. Had these works been produced by employees of the DNC, you might have a point. But they weren't. The documents are the work product of government employees operating within the scope of their employment. Further allegation that these memos were "stolen" can only mark you as a deliberate... well.... liar. So please don't do that anymore.
If my spies are correct, we are going to get the answer to both of your questions fairly soon. There is good reason to believe that the unpublished memos are circulating in increasingly wide circles within the Beltway. It would appear that at least two journalists have either seen them, or have been briefed on what is in them. Once a thing like this leaks past a certain point, there is no putting it back in the bottle.
It appears as though Hatch decided on his own to "handle the problem" within the Judiciary Committee, as opposed to getting any sort of law enforcement involved. That's very "Gentleman's Club" of him, but depending on how cut-and-dried the bribery evidence is, he may come to regret that a whole bunch. From what I hear, we could see people doing the perp walk in handcuffs over some of the stuff in those memos.
From your keyboard to God's ears.
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