The counsel on judicial nominations for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has resigned in response to a probe of how Republican staff members gained access to Democratic computer files on President Bush's most controversial choices for the federal judiciary.
Aides to Frist said the resignation of Manuel Miranda, who has been on leave pending outcome of the inquiry, was accepted last week and takes effect today.
Sen. Orrin Hatch sought a probe on Judiciary Committee computer use.
(Julie Jacobson -- AP)
|
|
Miranda's resignation comes in the midst of an investigation by the Senate sergeant-at-arms, with help from the Secret Service and forensic experts, into whether GOP staffers improperly or perhaps illegally tapped into Democratic strategy memos on a computer server shared by Judiciary Committee members of both parties. The activity continued for months, and reports of the memos' contents appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times.
Miranda was on the committee's GOP staff until he joined Frist's staff last February as the top aide on judicial nominations. Miranda's computer was one of several seized or examined as part of the investigation.
The probe was launched after Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) complained that lifting materials from their computer files amounted to theft. Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) joined in their request for an investigation.
Hatch made a preliminary inquiry of his own, placed a junior-level committee aide on leave (he subsequently quit and returned to school) and described himself as "mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."
Some conservative advocacy groups have criticized Hatch and denied any impropriety on the part of Miranda and other GOP aides. They said scrutiny should focus instead on contents of the Democratic files.
Miranda did not return phone calls to his Washington home, but he told the Knoxville News Sentinel in a story posted yesterday on its Web site that he left Frist's office "so as not to distract the majority leader from pursuing the needed legislative agenda for the American people." He said he had done nothing wrong and expects to be cleared.
