Center Renews Call to Investigate Judiciary Memoranda

"The Code of Ethics for Government Service clearly states that all persons in government service must expose corruption wherever it’s discovered."

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 4, 2004

Contact: Jeffrey Mazzella

703.535.5836

Center Renews Call for Immediate Investigation Into Content of Judiciary Memoranda

"As a government employee, Sergeant-at-Arms Pickle has an ethical and professional obligation to release any unrevealed memos outlining corruption and potential criminal wrongdoing," says the Center’s Executive Director.

ALEXANDRIA, VA — As Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle prepares to release the results of his investigation into how Judiciary Democrats’ memoranda were obtained and made public, the Center for Individual Freedom today renewed its calls for a full investigation into the corruption and potential criminal wrongdoing outlined in the contents of the memos.

"Regardless of how these memos were obtained or what Sergeant Pickle’s report reveals, the corruption and manipulation of the judicial confirmation process highlighted in the memos must not be lost," said Jeffrey Mazzella, the Center’s Executive Director. "The memos we’ve seen outline, at the very least, unethical wrongdoing by Elaine Jones of the NAACP and possibly Senator Ted Kennedy, through the effort to delay confirmation hearings to stack the judicial deck in Ms. Jones’ favor in one of the most important civil rights cases in more than a generation -- the University of Michigan affirmative action case then-pending before the 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals. There is now strong reason to believe that the thousands of memos we haven’t seen could expose additional wrongdoing"

More than 3,000 memoranda that have not been revealed are currently under lock and key with the Sergeant-at-Arms’ office. A recent complaint filed with the Senate Ethics Committee by Manuel Miranda, a former Counsel to Majority Leader Bill Frist who has read the unpublished memoranda, suggests the documents "evidence public corruption by elected officials and staff of the United States Senate … includ[ing] evidence of the direct influencing of the Senate's advice and consent role by the promise of campaign funding and election support in the last mid-term election."

"The Code of Ethics for Government Service clearly states that all persons in government service must expose corruption wherever it’s discovered," said Mazzella. "As such, Sergeant Pickle has an ethical and professional obligation to release to authorities any memos in his possession outlining any such corruption and potential criminal wrongdoing.

"Based on claims made by at least one person who has read the unpublished memoranda, and the baffling reluctance of the powers that be in the Senate to probe the issue, the Justice Department should immediately seize the unpublished memos and launch a full and thorough investigation," Mazzella concluded.

The Center for Individual Freedom is a nonpartisan constitutional advocacy group that fights to protect individual freedoms and rights in the legal, legislative and educational arenas. The Center recently joined with more than two dozen organizations in calling on the Justice Department to take immediate possession of the unpublished memoranda because of "their probative value and relevance to a criminal investigation."

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