Frist aide resigns amid probe into leaked memos
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Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has resigned amid an investigation into how GOP staff members obtained confidential Democratic memos that outlined strategy for defeating President Bush's judicial nominees.
"I have departed so as not to distract the leader from pursuing a needed legislative agenda for the American people," Frist aide Manuel Miranda said in a statement Friday.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, began a probe in November after complaints from Democratic senators about the leaked memos.
Democrats were outraged because their documents were distributed to various media outlets and reporters.
In addition to resigning Friday, Miranda also filed a Senate ethics complaint alleging "public corruption" by Democratic senators and staff, The Associated Press reported.
"My departure will also allow me to speak freely and seek to return the focus of the Hatch investigation where it should have stayed -- on the substance of the Democrat documents themselves and the abuse of the public trust that they spell out, both the few that are public and the many that remain unpublished and are now in the possession of the sergeant at arms," Miranda's resignation statement said.
Conservatives have said the documents prove that Democrats collude with liberal advocacy groups in attempts to derail Bush's nominees to the federal bench.
Miranda, a former member of the Judiciary Committee staff before joining Frist's office, maintains he did nothing wrong. "Democrats were clever in turning this matter into a Washington 'leak investigation,' " his statement reads.
David Carle, a spokesman for Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's ranking Democrat, said Miranda's complaint had a "whiff of desperation" to it, the AP reported. He described Miranda to the news service as "someone who has just resigned in the midst of an investigation about theft and wrongdoing."
"There also is no small irony in his accusations, considering that his very job was to plot strategy with outside, right-wing Republican groups," Carle told the AP.
The Senate sergeant at arms office is seeking to complete the investigation into the memos in about a month.
Hatch's office declined to comment until the investigation is complete.
CNN's Silvio Carrillo contributed to this report.
Copyright 2004 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
