Updated below
Hey, this is great. Manuel Miranda, he who heads the the Nuclear Option team and who was named as the guy who somehow sorta got his hands on confidential Democratic documents is responding to people who are reminding him of his past.
Gotta give the guy credit. You send something to mmiranda@att.net, and by gum, he'll answer it! I guess he's really proud of his "improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files" (can't take credit for that, the Honorable Senator from Utah said it first).
Full correspondence below the fold.
Update:
After Manny told us about Pearson v Dodd, I wrote:
Eggselent. I guess you won't catch much time for trespass to chattels.
Then Manny replied:
none, Pearson is exactly about that...no private property rights in government documents of a Senator
And I finished with:
Whew! That was close. Good thing you had a good
lawyer. Guess you're just left with Hatch saying that
your actions were unethical. Better send him the memo.
First, Brian wrote:
[I am] mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch.
Name the Republican Senator who said that and whom he said that about.
To which Manny responded:
how is it your mommie let's you up this late?
Then I wrote to Manny:
Hi Manny,
Mommy taught me that when somebody takes something that doesn't belong to them, well, that's stealing. And stealing is a bad, bad thing.
Why? What did your mommy teach you?
I have to go play now. Bye-bye.
And damn me if Manny wasn't game to play right along and wrote back with this:
my mommy told me to read the Code of Ethics for Government Ethics, Clause 9, and Pearson v Dodd.
So, are there any legal beagles out there who are up on either of those? I think it's typical hypocrisy. He seems to be hiding behind interpretations of federal guidelines, praying that we won't notice that law trumps regs. There's also the little issue of Hatch stating that his actions were improper and unethical (which I guess is what got him hired by Frist).
He's also relying on CIVIL case law where documents were stolen, photocopied, then replaced. The copies were then sold to the press for profit. Plaintiff sued but lost on appeal. Doesn't seem to hold much precedent for criminal indictment. Ol' Manny better pray that the Dems never get back into power. Seems to me that even in a civil matter, there's a question of trespass to chattel, but then, I'm not an expert here.
Along those lines, it's not lost on me that if the filibuster is busted, the Republicans can finally completely stack the courts. An awful lot of Republicans who are, shall we say, not pure as the driven snow, would then never need fear being hauled up on charges. What would be the point? Ol' Manny is the perfect minion to head up Taskforce Filibuster Buster.
Talk about taking a personal interest in your work... :)
