Spokesman Sean McCormack said the department itself detected the instances of “imprudent curiosity,” which occurred separately on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14. He would not release the names of the employees.
McCormack added that he didn’t know what companies employed the two.
This Obama campaign response is certainly in order:
“This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. “This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama’s passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach.”
Is there any significance to the dates?
Josh Marshall notes they’re the day before the New Hampshire primary, the day of the Texas debate between Obama and Hillary Clinton and the day the Wright controversy started heating up. He also notes that similar happened to Bill Clinton in 1992.
The delay issue is certainly interesting. And deserves more scrutiny.
But, let’s not do the “bulls-eye” fallacy either, as The Skeptic’s Dictionary calls shooting some random info at a wall, then drawing a circle around it afterward and saying you’ve “hit a bullseye.”
The New Hampshire primary, day before? The day of Texas debate? Possible conspiracy relevance. Were these two people leaking info to Hillary Clinton? The GOP? Both? Was the GOP leaking info to Clinton?
But, March 14 as “the day the Wright story really hit”? I think not. That story has been percolating and building steam for some time. And, the passport search would seem irrelevant to the Wright issue. Rev. Jeremiah Wright was going to be a problem for Obama anyway.
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