Here's the kind of illegal behavior an unethical leader like Mr. DeLay inspires.

February 16, 2004
WASHINGTON TALK
Partisan Denunciations Fly Over Secret Strategy Memos
By NEIL A. LEWIS

WASHINGTON, Feb. 15 — Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have been matching each other with nasty accusations for well over two years in the debate over the treatment of Bush administration judicial candidates.

But the Democrats have now confidently gathered in a herd on the moral high ground over disclosures that some Republican staff aides had improperly obtained confidential strategy memorandums from a Senate computer. The Senate sergeant-at-arms, who is nearing the end of an investigation into the tampering, told senators last week that the Republican staff members' activities went on much longer and were far more extensive than previously believed.

They spanned more than two years and involved conscious computer hacking as some 3,000 Democratic documents were secretly downloaded, read and distributed by some number of Republican aides, said people who attended the briefings. No evidence that senators were involved has surfaced.

When the Judiciary Committee convened Thursday for the first time since the new disclosures, Democratic senators were present in full force to denounced the spying, saying it was a violation of both the criminal code and the unwritten rules of political behavior in the Senate under which the two parties get along.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts compared the situation to Watergate. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York invoked the depredations of Hitler and Stalin.

Before the new disclosures, Republicans had erected a common defense, saying the "spying" was little more than some staff members' peeking at a few documents made available to them through a computer flaw. More important, they argued, the documents themselves show a pattern of perfidy on the part of the Democrats in that they consulted and collaborated with outside liberal groups to oppose President Bush's judicial nominees, who were criticized in harsh terms.

But by Thursday, that appeared to some Republican senators a wan comeback.

When the Democrats began their serial denunciations, they all complimented Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican who is chairman of the committee, for his alacrity in initiating the investigation and his statements that he was mortified at what had occurred, comments that have earned him criticism from some conservative groups that he was caving in to the Democrats' demand for an investigation.

"He is the only Republican senator to have apologized for what occurred," said Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat.

With that, Democrats looked across the U-shaped committee table and glared at the Republicans.

Faced with a difficult-to-defend situation, many Republicans simply withdrew from the field of battle, quietly slipping out of the room. Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina joined Mr. Hatch in agreeing that what had happened was terribly wrong.

Senator John Cornyn, a freshman Republican of Texas, concurred but was less conciliatory. Mr. Cornyn said Democrats had recently used stolen documents to discredit William Pryor Jr., one of Mr. Bush's nominees to a federal appeals court.

Mr. Cornyn said a former employee of the Republican Attorneys General Association had passed documents to Democratic staff aides showing that Mr. Pryor, the Alabama attorney general, might have solicited money for the attorneys general's group from people who had business before him.

The documents suggested that the group was improperly raising money from groups like tobacco companies. But the person who took those documents from the group's files was not a Senate employee, Democrats pointed out, but was someone they regard as a whistle-blower, even as Republicans called her a thief.

The most unrepentant of Republicans was Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a member of the Republican leadership. According to the newspaper Roll Call, Mr. Santorum told reporters that he still believed that "the real potential criminal behavior" was with the Democrats because the content showed their unwholesome ways of colluding with outside interest groups to oppose Mr. Bush's judicial nominees.





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