Agriculture Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich officially announced his resignation on Friday during a press conference in Berlin amid accusations he shared confidential police data about a fellow lawmaker suspected of possessing child pornography.

...Merkel lauded Friedrich's accomplishments on counterterrorism as interior minister, a position he held from March 2011 to the end of 2013. She especially praised his inquiry into the shortcomings of the investigation of the far-right terror cell, the National Socialist Underground (NSU).

...Social Democrat Party (SPD) leaders confirmed on Thursday Friedrich had informed them back in October of the investigation into fellow party member Sebastian Edathy, who has been targeted by authorities as part of a child pornography investigation. Revealing such information would be a breach of German law.

At the time, Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), and its CSU sister party, were in coalition talks with the SPD.

"Accomplishments" on counter-terrorism and the NSU, LOL.

Regarding Edathy, I somehow wasn't surprised as my impression was of an overly power-conscious figure. (The last I read police found parts of physically destroyed hard drives at his home.) Moments from his career I can recall:

• he headed the parliamentary commission on the NSU neo-Nazi terror cell which concluded that there have been serious mistakes but failed to declare institutional racism as the reason, then again he always spoke out against far-righters (no wonder as he is of partly Indian descent);
  
• he attacked Schröder's one-time economy minister and later coal lobbyist for attacking Andrea Ypsilanti before the Hessen elections but attacked Ypsilanti for trying to cooperate with the Left Party afterwards;
  
• as chair of the interior commission of parliament he championed an internet surveillance law which was later declared unconstitutional (how funny if the claim turns out to be true that he was netted by foreign internet surveillance), but had an angry confrontation on Facebook when he was called out for using photos without permission.