Posted by
Gary Gross on Monday, October 02, 2006 9:56:34 PM
Prior to founding Media Matters, David Brock met with a number of leading Democratic Party figures, including Senator Hillary Clinton, former Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, and former Vice President Al Gore. Today, more than a few of the organization's roughly 30 staff members are Democratic operatives. Among these are Media Matters' chief communications strategist Dennis Yedwab, who is also the Director of Strategic Resources at Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Brock's personal assistant, Mandy Vlasz, is a Democratic pollster and a veteran consultant to Democratic campaigns, including the 2000 Gore/Lieberman campaign. Katie Barge, the Director of Research at Media Matters, formerly presided over opposition research for Senator John Edwards' unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign."
Katie Barge's name raised some red flags because I remember her getting caught with illegally accessing Michael Steele's credit report after she illegally found out Steele's Social Security number. Let's establish a timeline on this: Barge first worked for John Edwards' failed presidential campaign. When that tanked, she joined Media Matters as Director of Research. From there, she went to work for Chuck Schumer at the DSCC, where she first found out Michael Steele's social security number, then used that information to get a copy of Steele's confidential credit report. According to this Captains Quarters' post, she was instantly suspended "with pay" after admitting gaining access to Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele's confidential credit report. According to this SourceWatch article, Ms. Barge resigned from her position at the DSCC in November, 2005. Captain Ed's post also mentions this noteworthy item: In April of this year, Schumer introduced legislation to create an entire new bureaucracy for "data merchants", the
Schumer-Nelson ID Theft Prevention Bill. What penalties does the Schumer-Nelson bill prescribe for violations? A thousand dollars per violation, for starters, and repeated violations probably would get escalated.
A thousand dollar fine for a first time offender? That isn't much of a deterrant for a crime with such dangerous consequences. Here's the specifics about Lauren Weiner's plea agreement: Lauren Weiner, who was a researcher for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) last year when she accessed the credit data, will plead guilty to the misdemeanor offense in coming weeks, said her attorney, Whitney C. Ellerman. She will likely be sentenced to 150 hours of community service with no jail time or fines, and her criminal record will be erased after one year of probation.
It should be noted that Ms. Barge was Ms. Weiner's boss at the DSCC. Part of the plea agreement was for no jail time, no fine and, after a year of probation, her criminal conviction will be wiped from her record. Everyone who takes identity theft seriously should be infuriated that paid political hacks can access a candidate's confidential credit history without paying a fine, without serving a minute of jail time, be on probation for a year, at which time the conviction will be wiped from her criminal history. One last thing:
DSCC spokesman Phil Singer yesterday said the committee has paid the legal fees for Miss Weiner and Katie Barge, who was the committee's research director and supervised Miss Weiner at the time she obtained the credit report.