The US presidential race took a bizarre turn when the State Department disclosed that workers had improperly rummaged through the passport files of all three candidates. Senator Barack Obama called for a congressional investigation.
The snooping first surfaced against Obama, the Illinois Democrat whose file was accessed three time this year. In the course of Friday, however, department officials said the contract workers with access to the files also had dipped into the private information of New York Senator Hillary Clinton, the other Democratic hopeful, and Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has wrapped up his party's nomination.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who reportedly only heard of the incidents starting on Thursday, apologized to the candidates and promised her department would investigate.
But Obama was not satisfied and said Congress should investigate to insure the probe was not "simply an internal matter."
It was unclear whether the incidents were politically motivated. But they dominated US news at the start of a quiet holiday weekend and were a welcome diversion for the Obama campaign after a week of political battering over incendiary remarks by the candidate's longtime pastor.
The passport issue flared as Obama, locked in an increasingly nasty nomination battle with Clinton, secured a key endorsement, the backing of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.
Richardson served former president Bill Clinton -- candidate Clinton's husband -- as UN ambassador and energy secretary.
"You are a once-in-a-lifetime leader," Richardson said, speaking at a spirited rally in Portland, Oregon, with Obama at his side. "Above all, you will be a president who brings this nation together."
The passport disclosures were a major embarrassment for the State Department and viewed as a serious breach of privacy. The snooping into supposedly secure government records on politicians recalled a 1992 case in which a Republican political appointee at the State Department was demoted for searching Bill Clinton's passport records when he was running against US president George H.W. Bush.
Two of the workers who breached Obama's records on Jan. 9 and Feb. 21 have been fired. A third worker, who accessed the Illinois senator's file on March 14, had only been reprimanded. It subsequently turned out that person had also looked at the McCain file earlier this year.
Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the individual no longer has access to passport records.
"I can assure you that person's going to be at the top of the list of the inspector general when they talk to people, and we are currently reviewing our [disciplinary] options with respect to that person," McCormack said.
The two fired contractors worked for a company called Stanley Inc. Earlier this week, the 3,500-person company won a five-year, US$570 million contract to support passport services at the State Department. The company refused comment, but a State Department official confirmed that the two contractors had been employed at Stanley. The official requested anonymity because the information had not been publicly released.
In the Democratic battle, winning Richardson's backing was a major boost for Obama, and was seen as a rebuke to Clinton because of Richardson's service in her husband's administration. Richardson is also a Democratic superdelegate and former presidential candidate.
Richardson's backing of Obama, who aspires to become America's first black president, could show most dramatically among the governor's fellow Hispanics -- the US' largest ethnic bloc, which has largely backed Clinton.
He told Democrats it was time to stop bickering and get behind Obama, but the Clinton campaign dismissed the endorsement.
Senior strategist Mark Penn, noting Clinton's February victory in the New Mexico primary, said, "Perhaps the time when he could have been most effective has long since past."
Penn added that he didn't think it was a "significant endorsement."
The nod from Richardson had been sought relentlessly by both Obama and Clinton. Bill Clinton even went to Richardson's New Mexico home in January to watch the US' premier television sporting event, the football Super Bowl.
As a Democratic superdelegate, Richardson has a key role in the tight race for nominating votes and could bring other superdelegates to Obama's side. He also has been mentioned as a potential running mate for either candidate.
Obama leads Clinton among delegates whose votes were determined by primaries or caucuses, 1,406 to 1,249. But neither is on track to win enough pledged delegates to clinch the nomination -- 2,024 are needed. So the outcome could be decided by superdelegates -- elected and party officials who can choose whomever they like.
Including Richardson, Clinton leads 250 to 215 among superdelegates who have announced a choice. About 40 percent have not declared.
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
‘VERY DIRE’: This year’s drought, exacerbated by El Nino, is affecting 44 percent of Malawi’s crop area and up to 40 percent of its population of 20.4 million In the worst drought in southern Africa in a century, villagers in Malawi are digging for potentially poisonous wild yams to eat as their crops lie scorched in the fields. “Our situation is very dire, we are starving,” 76-year-old grandmother Manesi Levison said as she watched over a pot of bitter, orange wild yams that she says must cook for eight hours to remove the toxins. “Sometimes the kids go for two days without any food,” she said. Levison has 30 grandchildren under her care. Ten are huddled under the thatched roof of her home at Salima, near Lake Malawi, while she boils
RSS