Fox News
February 18, 2004
Top Senate Republicans pronounce themselves shocked when staff memos from the Judiciary Committee Democrats revealed that Democratic members of the committee had been working hand and glove with certain left-wing, special interest groups to block some of the president's judicial nominees. But the GOP leaders are not shocked at what the memos revealed, they were shocked that memos had fallen into their hands. Now a top Republican aide has lost his job, an investigation continues, and some conservatives are shaking their heads.
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Fox News correspondent James Rosen has the story.
JAMES ROSEN, FOX NEWS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Lawyer Manuel Miranda served as counsel to Senate majority leader Bill Frist. His job, winning Senate approval for President Bush's judicial nominees. Now Miranda, who resigned last Friday, is the latest casualty in a partisan war for control over the federal judiciary.
SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: I'm mortified that this improper, unethical, and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch.
ROSEN: The war began last fall when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch acceded to demands from Democratic colleagues for an investigation into how some GOP aides accessed Democratic staff memos on a shared computer drive. Memos later leaked to reporters and conservative groups. Democrats called it a high-tech, Watergate break-in. And Hatch, say disgruntled conservatives rolled right over.
HATCH: That at least one current member of Judiciary Committee majority staff had improperly accessed some of the documents.
ROSEN: Miranda, who served on the committee and confirmed to Fox News he read the memos, says there was no improper hacking, just Democrats carelessly leaving files easily accessible. But Senate Sergeant at Arms William Pickles is now investigating and will report to Hatch by month's end.
Lost in all of this is what the Democratic staff memos actually said. One to Senator Richard Durbin charged, quote, "Most of Bush's nominees are Nazis." Another memo to Durbin explained why Miguel Estrada, the president's nominee for the D.C. Circuit Court, was unacceptable to liberal groups. "The groups object to Estrada," the memo said, "because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court nomination."
C. BOYDEN GRAY, COMMITTEE FOR JUSTICE: Now that is a very anti- Hispanic memorandum of evidencing a very anti-minority viewpoint from the Democrats. And I can see why they're upset that it got out.
ROSEN: A third memo urged Senator Edward Kennedy to, quote, "hold off a vote on Julia Gibbons," a non-controversial nominee for the Sixth Circuit Court Of Appeals, in order to affect the outcome of an affirmative action case involving the University of Michigan. "The thinking," the memo said, "is that the current Sixth Circuit will sustain the affirmative action program. But if a new judge with conservative views is confirmed before the case is decided, that new judge will be able, under Sixth Circuit rules, to review the case and vote on it."
GRAY: I think it is important for the Republicans to say now hold it a second; you got your look at how these things came to get out. Now we must look at what actually has been disclosed.
ROSEN (on camera): Committee Democrats wouldn't speak on camera, but told reporters after a briefing today by the sergeant at arms, they still regard this as a criminal matter.
In Washington, James Rosen, Fox News.