Text size:

Schumer's consumer crusade tarnished by his own staffers

BY GLENN THRUSH | WASHINGTON BUREAU

October 2, 2005

WASHINGTON - Sen. Charles Schumer was one of the first politicians to rail against the evils of identity theft, but lately his signature issue has turned into a singular headache.

Schumer, who has led campaigns against Wheaties price-gouging and exorbitant ATM fees, recently sponsored legislation to protect corporate consumer data. He's also been pressuring legal publishers to block snoopers from accessing Social Security numbers online.

So imagine the glee of Republicans when they learned last month that two Schumer staffers at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had hacked into the credit report of Maryland Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, according to committee officials.

"It's an ironic and uncomfortable position for Chuck," said Baruch College politics professor Doug Muzzio.

In July, DSCC research director Katie Barge, 26, and researcher Lauren Weiner, 25, allegedly accessed Steele's report using his Social Security number in preparation for a possible Senate bid by Steele.

Schumer, chairman of the campaign committee, reported their actions to the U.S. attorney in Washington within hours of the alleged violation, say officials familiar with the case.

And the senator's allies have repeatedly said Schumer isn't a target of the investigation.

But the incident has provided the GOP with an opportunity to turn Schumer's consumer crusader image on its head.

"When you speak with such zeal about the importance of respecting privacy and an organization you head has violated someone's very personal credit information, that speaks for itself," said Dan Ronayne of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has led the anti-Schumer charge, along with conservative bloggers.

Last week, five members of the Republican committee, including former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), sent Schumer a letter requesting his "assurance, as a colleague" that DSCC staffers didn't access their credit histories.

DSCC spokesman Phil Singer said Steele's report was the only one accessed.

Weiner tapped into the report without consulting higher-ups and Barge informed DSCC executive director J.B. Poersch when she realized what her subordinate had done, Singer said.

Posing as an individual to obtain their credit report is punishable by up to 2 years in prison.

Singer says the GOP criticism is an attempt to divert attention from bigger scandals involving Tom DeLay and Bill Frist.

"The idea that one can equate a single incident involving two 20-somethings that the DSCC reported immediately to the authorities with the pattern of ethical problems experienced by the House majority leader is laughable," Singer said.

Muzzio thinks that the long-term consequences to Schumer are likely to be negligible.

The two women at the center of the FBI probe have been keeping a low profile. Both have resigned from the committee.

Barge and Weiner declined to comment through their lawyer, William Lawler III, the ex-president of the Washington, D.C., bar association who represented former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey during his 2004 sex scandal.

The DSCC is picking up the tab for Lawler, who charges as much as $400 an hour.

Barge quit a job overseeing a research staff of six at David Brock's liberal watchdog organization Media Matters to take the DSCC job. She is highly regarded in the tight-knit community of Democratic researchers, friends and associates say.

Barge cut her teeth as a researcher on the campaign of failed North Carolina Senate candidate Erskine Bowles and other contests, friends said.

Weiner, a Scarsdale, N.Y., native who graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, raised no red flags working for the Democratic National Committee last year, an associate said.

In April 2000, as an undergraduate at Northwestern University, Weiner published an article about Web access to personal records. In it, she wrote that "the Internet is threatening because it is all-empowering."