[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 95 (Tuesday, June 25, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6717-H6718]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE FBI FILE SCANDAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1996, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Ewing] is recognized during 
morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. EWING. Mr. Speaker, I come here today to talk about a topic which 
is not new in the press, but I think I would like to talk about it in a 
little different way. I want to talk about how we are looking at the 
file scandal that affects our Government.
  Many in the press and in this Congress have focused their attention 
on the actions of the White House staff with regard to the FBI files. 
They are correct to ask why the White House was rooting through most of 
this confidential and secretive information about hundreds of private 
citizens and whether the President's staff was digging for dirt on 
political opponents.
  However, I believe that the media and the Congress are failing to 
adequately question the role for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 
this matter. The FBI has been given tremendous responsibility by this 
Congress to investigate criminals and guarantee the security of our 
country. There is no excuse for the FBI to allow the White House staff 
to request highly confidential files without even asking the White 
House why they needed them. The FBI handling of this matter appears to 
me to be very irresponsible and negligent. This Congress needs to 
seriously question the FBI's role in this whole matter and how the 
agency would allow this breach of confidentiality.
  Mr. Speaker, it really is not any wonder that so many Americans have 
lost faith with their Government when the most powerful investigative 
agency can be used to snoop around in the private lives of American 
people for no apparent reason. And I refer to a recent editorial in the 
Wall Street Journal which talks about an FBI agent who was, until 2 
months ago, the top FBI agent working in the White House, and when he 
raised questions about the White House personnel security office and 
its director, Craig Livingstone, this FBI agent was transferred out by 
his superiors. I think that is a question that needs to be answered by 
this Congress.

[[Page H6718]]

  In addition, we are now learning that these files may have contained 
IRS information about the individuals, and if we go back to the post-
Watergate era, we know that this Congress passed laws to protect that 
from happening again. There are, indeed, some Members left in this 
Congress from the post-Watergate era and certainly to them the actions 
which they took to try to protect the rights of the American people 
from having their very sensitive and secret tax files made available 
for political reasons needs to be investigated.
  The chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means has suggested that 
felonies may have occurred in the handling of these files at the White 
House, and I think we have every right to look into that. We know that 
there is no good reason that anyone at the White House has any need to 
be involved and looking through the files, the IRS files, of people who 
may need entrance or clearance to visit the White House. No one, I 
would repeat, no one, is authorized to look at taxpayers' files and 
they should not at the White House think they have that right.
  Now, I believe that Attorney General Reno, and I commend her for 
seeking someone outside of her department to investigate themselves in 
this matter, but that is a pretty shrewd move politically also, because 
Ms. Reno knows that once Mr. Starr is authorized to look into this 
matter, that that will probably prevent this Congress from holding 
hearings, this Congress from calling Mr. Livingstone up here and 
answering to us what his actions were about.
  Initially, I think that Ms. Reno's efforts to broaden the inquiry 
were well received, but I am not sure that the American people or that 
any of us ought to sleep very comfortably knowing that we are going to 
be frozen out of the process of looking into this matter.

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