He was a prominent member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and became the chairman of a key committee in January 2012 at the Parliament, which was investigating failures of police and intelligence units in the serial murders of nine immigrants by the far-right German terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU) from 2000 to 2007.

[2] On 14 February 2014, Hans-Peter Friedrich resigned from the ruling CDU–SPD grand coalition government reacting to imminent legal investigations into incidents during his tenure as Federal Minister of the Interior.

Politicians from the socialist The Left, Green and the classical liberal Free Democrat parties all voiced disbelief that the BKA did not know.

FDP vice chairman Wolfgang Kubicki told that in the ranks of the BKA "either idiots were at work or they were trying to avoid a scandal.

"[4] Even the Christian Social Union – the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Merkel's dominant CDU – expressed confusion, interior spokesman Stephan Mayer: "It is inexplicable that the BKA did not notice that Edathy's name was on the list of child porn buyers.

[6] Following Edathy's admission, the Verden District Court in the German state of Lower Saxony handed the former Social Democrats (SPD) deputy a fine of 5,000 euros ($5,600), bringing the trial to an end.