The ongoing controversy over the way in which Republican Hill staffers stole documents from the computers of Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee just won’t break the GOP’s way, no matter how hard they try. Poor guys.
Republicans offered up a sacrificial lamb, forcing the resignation of Manuel Miranda, Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R-Tenn.) top adviser on judicial nominations. The idea, at least in theory, was that the GOP was so anxious to talk about the substance of the stolen memos — which documented the way in which Dems worked with interest groups to block Bush’s most right-wing judicial nominees — that they’d punish a couple of high-level staffers so the attention could shift to their concerns.
But it’s not working out that way. People are far more interested in the way in which the GOP stole documents for a year than what the documents actually say.
Initially, conservative news outlets and websites began publishing 14 memos taken from Dem computers. Yesterday’s edition of Roll Call, however, explained that Miranda, Frist’s former staffer, said there were actually “thousands” of documents stolen.
Apparently, the thieves were hoping to someday write a book about the nominating process and wanted to use the stolen memos as valuable source material.
Instead of shifting the attention from the scandal to the Dems’ tactics, however, these revelations have focused even more attention on the scope of the Republicans’ pilfering.
In fact, Roll Call explained that investigation into the stealing of the documents is likely to “dominate the focus of the Judiciary Committee’s work for weeks to come, with Sergeant-at-Arms Bill Pickle not due to finish his investigation until the end of this month.”
And Senate Dems, who Republicans hoped to placate with a few dismissals, are moving forward with calls for a criminal probe.
Even with Miranda pushed out of his job with Frist, Senate Democrats said they still intend to push for a detailed accounting of the memo accessing and whether criminal or internal ethical breaches occurred. One senior Judiciary Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), said he intends to demand that Pickle examine the flow of where the memos went and whether top White House officials had access to them.
“It will reach beyond the committee,” Durbin predicted. “There are many questions that need to be asked.”
“It’s not enough for me,” Minority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said of Miranda’s resignation. “Information was stolen. Sensitive writings of members of the Judiciary Committee were stolen. I just don’t think we should let that go. The American public deserves more.”
The Dems have caught Republicans with their hands in the cookie jar. Why should they let this go away quietly?