Edathy announced his resignation from parliament "for health reasons" on 7 February 2014. Just two days after his resignation went public, his home and offices were searched by authorities; media outlets asserted that the searches were made on allegations of possession of child pornography. 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. Friedrich was accused of betraying state secrets about legal investigations to SPD party heads during the coalition negotiations after the federal elections in 2013 about information showing Edathy's link to a globally-operating child pornography syndicate and plans to take up an investigation against Edathy on suspicion of possessing such material. "The SPD's top leaders, who received the intelligence information from Friedrich, said they have not given any tip-off to Edathy and they kept the information secret." They are Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who is also Merkel's deputy; Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier; and the party's parliamentary leader, Thomas Oppermann.