Memo Call to Secret Service (Repubs want S.S. to decide)

[kskiska]

In a highly unusual move, Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans are pushing for the Secret Service to decide whether the controversy over unauthorized access of Democratic memos should be referred to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation.

The Republican action comes after key Democrats on the committee demanded that a special prosecutor be appointed to conduct a criminal probe into how some 4,700 Democratic memos fell into Republican hands between 2001 and 2003.

Republicans want the Secret Service to be involved because the controversy has become too politicized for lawmakers to decide if the Justice Department should become involved. They say that some Democrats appear open to handing off what has become a political hot potato to the Secret Service, setting the stage for a bipartisan compromise later this week.

To let the Secret Service make the call on whether the access of private Democratic memos and the subsequent distribution of some of those files to the media should be treated as a criminal matter is highly unusual, as the Secret Service is primarily a fact-finding agency.

more…
http://www.thehill.com/news/030904/memo.aspx

[Leilani]

1. Sounds like the brave Dem senators are caving again!

This was a criminal act. For 2 years the Repubs read all their stuff.

If they won't fight on this one, where & when will they fight?

[joeunderdog]

3. And whose back pocket are the SS in?

This is friggin ridiculous. Accept no compromise. Let them defeat you before bending over on this. It will invite this behavior in the future.

What is there to lose by going balls to the wall on this?

It's like watching someone piss all over you and saying "can ya hand me a Kleenex?"

[mtnester]

2. When it was called WATERGATE

People went to PRISON for this for a LONG time, and a president resigned in disgrace over something that started out similar to this.

(yeah it was country club prison, but it was still PRISON).

:shrug:

[newyawker99]

7. Hi mtnester!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Beetwasher]

4. The SS???

That's absurd! They have absolutely NOTHING to do with it and are in no way have any sort of jurisprudence in the matter...

[nolabels]

8. Oh no, not them too..............

The SS in Nazi Germany

Among the institutions operating in Nazi Germany, the most sinister and feared of them all was the SS. Originally subject to the SA, this collection of soldiers began as a small elite bodyguard that protected the Fuehrer and developed into a number of different institutions as it grew in size. The different roles it later assumed are (1) a party police force; (2) a terrorist police force; (3) a regular army within the army commanding its own forces, the Waffen SS; (4) a huge economic conglomerate with its influence heavy in big business in Germany and later in the conquered territories; and (5) a huge killing machine that supervised a horrifying system of concentration camps in which people were tortured and annihilated.

The SS had its origins in Bavaria in the 1920s, led by the short, unathletic, and near-sighted Bavarian, Heinrich Himmler. With great dedication and careful skill, Himmler assembled the major instruments of Nazi terror-SS, police, and concentration camps. The goals of his efforts was not to plainly administer terror for its own sake but to create a racially pure machine. The sterilization, euthanasia of those considered "not worth living", and medical experiments were all for the sake of achieving this ideal, of creating a race of uebermenschen, supermen. Therefore, his terror machine was the product of both his and Hitler's racial beliefs. It was these beliefs that Himmler would believe in and follow religiously and expect similar devotion of his beloved SS troops.
(snip)

http://cghs.dade.k12.fl.us/holocaust/ss.htm

[UpInArms]

5. ?????

:wtf:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

6. The only reason I can see for the USSS to be involved is through

their jurisdiction over computer fraud. Since they are the money cops for the most part, they used to have the only computer fraud unit.
That was a few years ago, though. It may have changed.