Back on topic, from Josh Marshall, followed by a Reuter's article... _____________________ What the right wanteth, the right geteth. Or maybe not. I should probably come up with a more elegant way to put it. But things just seem to have gotten pretty weird at the Senate Judiciary Committee this evening. All the Democrats and Advertisement The Democrats need your help to win big in November and take our country back from right-wing extremists in the Bush administration. Click to get started with the Democratic Party. You can help us fight with action alerts, campaign updates, and by volunteering. two, three or perhaps even more of the Republicans on the committee favored asking the Justice Department to appoint a prosecutor or perhaps even a special counsel to investigate the case of the pilfered Democratic staff memos. Several different iterations of a possible letter were moving along and being edited and so forth, all trying to come up with a document that all or most members of the committee could sign. But then things just seemed to break down, though I'm not completely clear why. Senator Hatch, the committee chairman, with five Republicans present, called the committee to order while the Democrats were off caucusing. He then announced that no agreement would be possible and gaveled the session to a close. And that was it. It all seems to have happened before the Dems even realized what was going on. Hatch then told Bill Pickle, the sergeant-at-arms, to do what he thought was best -- as far as whether to refer the matter to DOJ. This, of course, puts Pickle in an impossible position since he's not supposed to be a partisan and this issue was so contentious and charged that even the senators themselves could not agree amongst themselves what to do. In any case, after all this brouhaha went down, six senators -- three Dems and three Republicans -- got together and agreed on a letter that was similar to the letter earlier agreed upon by all the Dems and at least two of the Republicans. (Follow that? Good.) We've just posted the letter that was sent. This Reuters article, which describes what happened, says that "six senators signed a similar though more softly worded request." But reading it, it's actually difficult for me to see just how much more strongly it could have been written. As you can see, the letter asks Justice to investigate, suggests a special counsel should be appointed, and even suggests that Patrick Fitzgerald -- the guy now heading up the Plame investigation -- would be a good candidate for the job. I don't see quite how much more you could ask for. In any case, one more point to note: the three Republicans who signed are Lindsay Graham, Saxby Chambliss and Mike DeWine. DeWine's definitely a moderate. But you can't really say the same for the other two -- at least not in conventional ideological terms. In fact, it's pretty difficult to find any rationale for their signing this letter other than their belief that it was the right thing to do -- which says a lot for both of them. I think the Dems have right on their side too certainly. But in their case right coincides with interest. And that always makes it easier. The 'moderate' former prosecutor Arlen Specter seems to have decided to take a breather on this one. -- Josh Marshall ----------------------------- U.S. Senate Panel Accord on Memo Probe Collapses Thu Mar 11, 2004 09:43 PM ET By Joanne Kenen WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee bipartisan bid for a federal probe into Republican staffers' improper access to sensitive Democratic computer files collapsed in bitter disarray on Thursday night, leaving the future of the investigation in question. A majority of the panel -- all nine Democrats and at least three Republicans -- had wanted to ask the U.S. Justice Department to appoint a prosecutor or even a special prosecutor to look into what the panel's senior Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont called "unprecedented partisan espionage." Committee members attempted all day to find compromise language on how to proceed. The documents had involved President Bush's contentious judicial appointees. With no Democrats and about a half-dozen Republicans present, committee chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, announced on Thursday evening the panel would not be able to reach agreement and he would leave it up to the Senate sergeant-at-arms William Pickle to decide what to do. "We cannot get together," Hatch said. Addressing Pickle, he said, "Do whatever you think is right." Pickle told Reuters he needed to "digest what I just heard" before making a decision. Earlier in the day, he said he thought a referral to the U.S. attorney's office, though not the Justice Department itself, was probably the best course of action. Pickle last week released a report detailing how two Republican staffers, who have both since left their jobs, exploited computer security weaknesses to access more than 4,600 documents. Republicans and Democrats alike have condemned the staffers' actions as improper, but they say prosecutors must decide whether actual crimes were committed. DEMOCRATS SURPRISED Democrats were caught by surprise by Hatch's action, thinking they had a few more minutes to cast votes on the Senate floor before returning to the Judiciary session in a nearby room, the fourth meeting of the day on this topic. "We weren't boycotting this," said Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, who accused some Republicans of wanting to stop or curtail the probe to block revelations about "which interest groups received these stolen documents" about Democratic strategy in the fierce partisan battle over the judges. Some of the memos were leaked to conservative media outlets. Democrats wanted to know whether the documents, or materials based on the documents, were given to the White House or shared with Bush's judicial nominees. Committee Democrats on Wednesday night had written their own letter to the Justice Department seeking a special prosecutor. After the committee blowup Thursday night, six senators signed a similar though more softly worded request. They were Democrats Durbin, Charles Schumer of New York and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Republicans Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Lawyers representing one of the former aides who took the documents, Manuel Miranda, released two lengthy documents criticizing Pickle's report. They said Miranda was a whistle-blower, not a thief, taking advantage of a computer security glitch to fulfill his duty to further the president's agenda on the judiciary. Also on Thursday, the panel sent two more of the president's circuit court nominees to the full Senate for confirmation. Democrats voted no or abstained on William Haynes, currently general counsel for the Defense Department, saying they wanted him to answer questions about the Defense Department's policies regarding the detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo naval base in Cuba, and the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens declared "enemy combatants."
The letter's at http://talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/dem.gop.memo.letter.pdf I find it interesting that the letter wants the same guy doing the Plame investigation.
A quick question before I go for a family hike on a wonderful day... Why is it the most strident defenders of Bush and disparagers of Kerry and Dems are absent from this thread?
(from what I posted in another thread where rim asked the same question. Deserves the same answer from me.) Because they are too busy searching obscure blogs, National Review, the Washington Times, etc. to post some goofy stuff either supporting their guy without facts or made up of whole cloth, or attacking Kerry with same, or else they realize that this is serious stuff which puts their guy and his friends right in the crosshairs of an immense scandal. Or both... take your pick. It happens here all the time. Anything really, really seriously felony material, with no explanation that makes any sense that could explain it, gets "ignored" like a leper browsing the lingerie department in Macy's. That's my explanation and I'm stickin' to it. Have a fun time, rimrocker.
Referred to Justice... we'll see how they handle it and who recuses themselves. From The Hill... _____________________________ Pickle to take memo report to Justice By Alexander Bolton Senate Sergeant at Arms Bill Pickle said Tuesday that he would give his report on how Republican aides obtained internal Democratic Judiciary Committee memos to the Justice Department for a possible criminal prosecution. Pickle told The Hill he would act this week, perhaps as soon as today. patrick g. ryan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) left it to Pickle to decide whether his March 3 report should go to Justice. Hatch kicked the decision over to Pickle after the full Judiciary Committee failed to reach a compromise over how to settle the controversy. In addition, last week, three Democrats and three Republicans on the Judiciary Committee wrote Attorney General John Ashcroft asking for a criminal investigation of how GOP aides obtained thousands of confidential Democratic committee documents. Pickle said he has had several discussions with Justice Department officials this week on how to handle the report. “They will be getting the report this week,” said Pickle. “We will move on from there when they review it.” “We’ve obviously highlighted some potential criminal [violations],” he added. “It is up to the Department of Justice as the experts to decide if they want to review it.” Pickle said he was following the standard practice of FBI and Secret Service agents in post-investigative situations. Pickle said he could have asked Justice to appoint a special prosecutor to pursue the case or he could have dismissed on his own authority the possibility that any laws had been broken. “I’m choosing the middle option,” said Pickle. He added that he did not refer the matter to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia because members of the Judiciary Committee did not support that option. In his report, Pickle said GOP aides might be prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. His report stated that Manuel Miranda, a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), could also be prosecuted for making false statements to investigators. In a letter dated March 12, GOP Sens. Mike DeWine (Ohio), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) joined Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy (Mass.), Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Charles Schumer (N.Y.) in asking Ashcroft to appoint a “professional prosecutor who is free from all conflicts and appearances of conflict — or, if appropriate, a special counsel — who has full investigatory, charging and reporting authority.” The lawmakers asked for the prosecutor to have authority to prosecute “all potential crimes related to the access and dissemination of the files.” Senate aides said that all Democrats on the Judiciary Committee supported the request for a criminal investigation. Only three Democrats signed the letter to give it a bipartisan balance, they said. The three-person contingent of Republican senators agreed to sign the Democratic letter after an effort to reach a bipartisan compromise in a meeting of the full committee failed late Thursday evening. Hatch and other Republicans on the panel refused to endorse any letter that asked for a prosecutor to investigate the dissemination of the Democratic documents, arguing that it wasn’t a crime. Hatch also demanded the letter drop any reference to a special prosecutor. He argued that special prosecutors traditionally have investigated felony crimes at the highest levels of the executive branch. Hatch classified the improper accessing of Democratic memos as a misdemeanor and said it would be a bad precedent to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate potential misdemeanors committed by staff members in the legislative branch. Hatch also objected to a preliminary draft of a letter that asked Justice to consult with the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee before appointing a special prosecutor. Hatch had pushed last week for committee Republicans to vote for letting the U.S. Secret Service, an arm of the Homeland Security Department, decide whether to refer the memo controversy to a criminal prosecutor. However, the tide began to turn against that option when Graham said he would vote to refer the issue to a “professional prosecutor.” On Thursday, every Republican member of the committee gave Hatch a letter stating: “We are now certain that only a determination by a professional prosecutor as to whether any laws were violated will bring this matter to a just and timely matter.” But in the end only three Republican members sided with the preferred Democratic approach when the full panel failed to agree on how to phrase the prosecutorial request.
Justice Dept. Probes Senate Memo Scandal Mon Apr 26, 7:13 PM ET Add Politics - U. S. Congress to My Yahoo! By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The Justice Department (news - web sites) on Monday asked the new U.S. attorney in New York to investigate how Republicans got access to Democrats' computer memos in the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites). A report by the Senate sergeant-at-arms earlier this year faulted two of committee chairman Orrin Hatch's former employees for the intrusion into the Democrats' computer documents. It says 4,670 files were found on a GOP aide's computer, "the majority of which appeared to be from folders belonging to Democratic staff." Democrats have called for an outside investigation, and the Justice Department on Monday sent the case to David Kelley, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Kelley, a Democrat, took James Comey's position as U.S. attorney after Comey left to become deputy attorney general, the No. 2 job at the Justice Department. Kelley is "an experienced prosecutor of the highest integrity and independence," said Assistant Attorney General William Moschella in a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. "We are confident the investigation will be handled in a thorough, fair, impartial and professional manner." The Justice Department would not comment beyond the letter to Leahy. "This is a serious matter that deserves and requires careful investigation," said Leahy, who requested the investigation. "The Senate sergeant-at-arms made a good start with his investigation and report. With the powers available to a federal prosecutor, this matter can now be more thoroughly investigated, so that those who engaged in criminal conduct may be brought to justice." Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., called the appointment "a very good first step" and said Kelley is "independent" and "without conflicts." "The only thing missing is for (Attorney General) John Ashcroft (news - web sites) to recuse himself to avoid any potential conflict of interests," Schumer said. Added Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas: "If there is to be an investigation, I'm encouraged to know that the decision will be made by professionals, not partisans. Now, perhaps, the Senate Judiciary Committee can get back to work." The report by Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle's office blamed the intrusion on former GOP aides Manuel Miranda, who worked for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, and Jason Lundell, a clerk who worked on nominations for Hatch. Miranda resigned during the dispute. Lundell left last year. "The matter had to be referred to someone to review. I expect that any fair-minded, apolitical law enforcement professional will quickly conclude what legislators could not:...that no crime was committed," Miranda said. "I hope that this referral includes the charges of corruption filed against Democrat senators with the DOJ Office of Public Integrity." Conservatives say the memos prove the Democrats colluded with liberal groups over which Bush nominees to block. One ethics complaint has been filed against Democrats Sen. Richard Durbin, of Illinois, and Sen. Edward Kennedy, of Massachusetts, based on the leaked information.
As an aside, WTF is this guy doing being nominated and considered for the second most powerful court in the land? ____________________ Aide Denies Knowing About Memos Bush Nominee Says White House Found Out From Media Associated Press Wednesday, April 28, 2004; Page A19 No one at the White House knew about Democratic memos on judicial nominees being taken from Senate computers by GOP Senate aides, one of President Bush's lawyers told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. "I don't know of anyone who was aware of this matter until we heard about it through the media," said Brett Kavanaugh, who serves as Bush's assistant and staff secretary. He was testifying before the panel at his confirmation hearing after being named a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Senate Democrats have complained that two of committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch's aides intruded into their computer files on judicial nominations and distributed them to Republican groups. On Monday, the Justice Department asked David Kelley, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to investigate and determine whether a crime had been committed. Before Kavanaugh was named an assistant to Bush, he was one of the president's lawyers working on getting judicial nominations through the Senate. Kavanaugh, who said he met with one of the accused aides several times, testified that he never suspected that Democrats' files might have been broken into by GOP aides. Republicans said Kavanaugh, 39, would be perfect for the D.C. appeals court, which decides important government cases involving separation of powers, the responsibilities of federal officials and the authority of federal agencies. "Mr. Kavanaugh is a person of high integrity, of skilled professional competence and outstanding character," Hatch said. Democrats agreed on Kavanaugh's skills and personality, but said they were concerned that he might continue to advocate for the Republicans from the bench. "From the notorious Starr report, to the Florida recount, to this president's secrecy and privilege claims . . . to controversial judicial nominations, if there's been a partisan political fight that needed a good lawyer in the last decade, Brett Kavanaugh was probably there," Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. Kavanaugh said he knew the difference between being a good lawyer and a good judge. "I will faithfully follow the law and defend the law as passed by Congress," he pledged. He also parried questions from Democrats about his work with then-independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr on the report about President Bill Clinton's relationship with White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky and his efforts on Bush's judicial nominees. "I don't think it's appropriate for me to say whether the House got it wrong in deciding to impeach [Clinton] or the Senate got it wrong in deciding not to prosecute," Kavanaugh said. After Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked whether the White House has nominated a single judge who is not antiabortion, Kavanaugh said, "I don't know, and we don't ask nominees or candidates questions like that."
