Clinton, Obama, McCain Passport Files Snooped by State Department Employees

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The passport files of presidential candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, and Sen. John McCain, a Republican, were improperly accessed by State Department workers, a U.S. official said on Friday.

The official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, declined further comment. On Thursday, the State Department said it had fired two employees and disciplined a third for having snooped in the passport files of Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat running for president.

WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice apologized Friday to Senator Barack Obama for an incident in which three State Department contract workers unnecessarily reviewed the Democratic presidential candidate's passport file.

"I told him that I was sorry, and I told him that I myself would be very disturbed," Rice said. "None of us wants to have a circumstance where any American's passport files are looked at in an unauthorized way," she added.

The episode raised questions as to whether the scrutiny was politically motivated. Two of the workers were fired and a third was reprimanded for improperly opening electronic information from the passport file of Obama, State Department officials said.