[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 92 (Thursday, June 20, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6682-H6683]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE FILEGATE INVESTIGATION
(Mr. HAYWORTH asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous
material.)
Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, all Americans should note with pride the
fact that the Olympic torch passes through Washington today on its way
to Atlanta, GA, but we should issue this warning both to the
International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic Committee:
``Whatever you do with that torch, please don't stop at the White
House.'' Chances are the torch would get lost and we would not see it
for 2\1/2\ years. But I am sure that would be just an honest
bureaucratic snafu.
Mr. Speaker, in all sincerity, this morning I respectfully request
that we include in the Record the lead editorial in today's Washington
Times entitled ``The Filegate Investigation.'' If we include that in
the Record, we will come to the conclusion that all sober and fair-
minded Americans should share, that with all due respect to the FBI,
letting the FBI conduct its own investigation into the Filegate matter
would be like letting the fox guard the henhouse. An independent
counsel is needed to get to the truth on this subject.
The Filegate Investigation
Now that Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr has
determined he lacks jurisdiction to investigate White House
abuse of FBI background files on more than 400 Reagan and
Bush appointees, Attorney General Janet Reno is planning to
turn over the investigation to the FBI itself. That is less
than a satisfactory solution--to put it mildly.
This unprecedented and ``egregious''--as FBI Director Louis
Freeh describes it--violation of the Privacy Act could not,
after all, have happened without FBI cooperation. And this is
not the first time that that agency has overstepped the
bounds of propriety, if not legality, in its willingness to
cooperate with the Clinton White House. Senior FBI officials
allowed themselves to be browbeaten by White House staffers
into getting involved in constructing the Clintons' cover
story for the summary firing of seven travel office employees
in May, 1993. And now it turns out that for months
afterwards, without batting an eye, they were merrily
handling over hundreds of confidential files the White House
had no business getting its hands on.
The White House responded to the initial revelations of
these privacy violations with typical disingenuousness. While
acknowledging it should never have happened, Clinton
spokesmen laid it all at the feet of a low-level clerk, who
had no idea who did or did not still need White House access
and was using an outdated Secret Service list--and an order
form stamped with then-White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum's
name. The Secret Service quickly jumped into the fray with
the news that their lists of employees are constantly
updated, and that active and inactive passholders are very
clearly designated--in short, that there is no such thing as
an out-dated Secret Service list.
That hardly mattered in any case, once it also became known
that the clerk, civilian Army investigator Anthony Marceca,
was actually a longtime Democratic hack, who'd been brought
on board by and was working under the direction of another
veteran Democratic operative, Craig Livingstone, who worked
for then-Associate Counsel, Rose Law Firm partner and Clinton
crony William H. Kennedy III. All three had every reason to
know perfectly well that they didn't need
[[Page H6683]]
background files on, say, former Secretary of State James
Baker.
None of this painful truth has stopped the White House's
spin machine from continuing to maintain with a straight face
that the illegal intrusion into confidential files by Clinton
employees was nothing more than a ``bureaucratic snafu.'' Nor
has it interfered with Democrats' unblushing assertions
(which will ring a bell with anyone who followed the Senate
Whitewater investigations) that any further questions about
this scandalous act--and particularly the hearings that began
this week in the House Government Reform and Oversight
Committee (with more to follow soon on the Senate Judiciary
Committee), are ``politically motivated.''
It's clear despite the PR, however, that the beleaguered
folks in the Clinton White House recognize they're in trouble
once again. The president and chief of staff have apologized,
albeit in classic Clinton style--without admitting to any
wrongdoing. Craig Livingstone, it was announced this week,
will be going on ``requested'' paid leave of absence. And
White House Counsel Jack Quinn has decreed that henceforth,
all security operations will be put under the control of
Charles Easley, a veteran career civil servant who was hired
during the Reagan administration.
Admirably free of the Clintonian ethics plague as Mr.
Easley undoubtedly is, it's too late to get those 408 FBI
background files back in the toothpaste tube. More to the
point, his appointment only raises the question why someone
like him was not appointed in the first place--if the Clinton
administration really had no evil intentions.
And honorable as Director Freeh may be, his agency is too
sullied by its part in the Privacy Act violation to carry out
a credible investigation. It is troubling, indeed, to say
this about yet another Clinton administration scandal, but if
anything ever called for the appointment of an independent
counsel, this does. Ms. Reno should not delay in seeking such
an appointment. Anything else will look too much like setting
the fox to guard the henhouse.
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