THE REAL ‘SNAFU’ IN THE CLINTON FILE SCANDAL

(Washington, D.C.): Historians may regard the revelation that
the Clinton Administration improperly requisitioned secret FBI
personnel files on hundreds of Reagan and Bush Administration
appointees as the beginning of the end of Mr. Clinton’s
presidency. Interestingly, the reason for such an apocalyptic
assessment is not primarily because the nature of the scandal
evident so far.

To be sure, the compilation of a list of over 400 individuals
who the White House might have considered unfriendly — if not as
actual “enemies” — is a problem for Bill Clinton.
(Presumably, had the list been extended beyond those with last
names beginning with the first seven letters in the alphabet, it
would have run to the thousands.) Thanks to this operation which
apologists insist was just “an honest bureaucratic
snafu,” the Administration got the FBI to transfer to a
White House safe the size of a small bedroom a treasure trove of
politically sensitive information. It included legally protected
background data on Members of Congress (like Speaker Newt
Gingrich), former Cabinet officers (like Secretary of State James
Baker) and others (including a number of Hill staffers
responsible for investigations into such natty problems as the
Waco fiasco, the Administration’s dismal drug policy and Energy
Secretary Hazel O’Leary’s various scandals).

Nobody Here but Us ‘Victims’

It seems likely that upcoming hearings will reinforce the
perception that what FBI Director Louis Freeh called the
“victimization” of his agency by the Clinton White
House was occasioned by a political purpose, not through
ineptitude. These hearings may even validate explosive charges
made in the Wall Street Journal last week by Gary
Aldrich, a former FBI agent assigned for five years to duty in
the executive mansion: He and a colleague repeatedly warned
supervisory personnel at the Bureau about the personnel security
practices of the Clinton team. In particular, Mr. Aldrich notes
that Craig Livingstone, a Hillary Clinton protégé who at the
tender age of 35 was given the position of director of White
House Security, had unmonitored access to the improperly accessed
files on Republicans — and the ability to copy or otherwise
utilize them at will.

It is predictable, though, that a far more serious difficulty
for the Clinton Administration — and for the Nation — will
prove to be a point given only passing treatment by Special Agent
Aldrich in his op.ed. focusing on the current file flap: “The
Clinton Administration had relaxed the security system at the
White House so that those loyal to the Administration could evade
background checks.”

Agent Aldrich notes the irony that, “at the time the
White House requested the files on previous administrations’
appointees — one full year into the Clinton Administration —
more than 100 Clinton staffers, including then-Press Secretary
Dee Dee Myers, still had not been investigated by the FBI for
passes or clearances.” He might have added that individuals
were given access to the White House complex for months at a
time, and in some cases for over a year, on the basis of
“temporary” passes or even “visitors” badges.

In this way, the normal security investigation and approval
procedures — the latter requiring formal Secret Service assent
— could be circumvented. Given the nature of most presidential
staff offices and the information available to them, however,
such “no escort required” White House passes enable
access to classified information and effectively authorize such
access.

Just One ‘Snafu’ After Another

When this controversial practice briefly became a matter of
congressional and press attention in the spring of 1994 href=”96-D57.html#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾, the director of the
White House Office of Administration, Patsy Thomasson, tried to
dismiss legitimate concerns with an explanation
all-too-reminiscent of the current “bureaucratic snafu”
line. Ms. Thomasson who had herself only gotten a security
clearance in February 1994 — thirteen months into her job —
assured Congress that “there was no reason for concern that
senior White House aides lacked permanent passes because they
nonetheless had gotten ‘requisite security’ approval.” As
the Wall Street Journal reported at the time, a senior
administrative official in the Carter and Bush White Houses, Phil
Larsen, decried that contention as “malarkey”:
“The Secret Service must clear a final financial check, and
is part of an adjudication. ‘None of this makes any sense,’
[Larsen said]. It would be ‘astonishing’ if security clearances
were issued before passes were. ‘The two always — and
should — go together.'”

Just in case the ominous implications of such a melt-down of
security procedures at the White House were not self-evident, Ms.
Thomasson clarified them in congressional testimony. Referring to
the “mole” who perpetrated the Kremlin’s most
successful penetration of the CIA discovered to date, Ms.
Thomasson declared: “We don’t think we have any
Aldrich Ameses at the White House. But we certainly could.”

Thanks to the Clinton Administration’s lax security
practices, such a possibility is not, unfortunately, limited to
the White House. Political appointees whose backgrounds
might make them susceptible to blackmail and other traditional
recruitment techniques of foreign intelligence services — for
example, history of drug abuse, shady financial dealings,
non-traditional sexual preferences, etc. — are not subjected to
the same scrutiny given civil servants. As a result, individuals
who could not previously have held senior government positions,
to say nothing of obtaining access to classified information,
have been able to do so.

What is more, Clinton appointees serving in the intelligence
community have not been obliged to take periodic lie-detection
tests, as is the norm for their career counterparts. And, thanks
to the Administration’s obsessive commitment to the widest
possible “sharing” of sensitive U.S. intelligence with
foreign nationals and multilateral organizations, the sort of
monitoring critical to effective counter-intelligence work is
becoming nearly impossible to perform.

The Bottom Line

In short, what is so troubling about the Clinton White House’s
recently revealed, selective interest in background
investigations is what it says about the larger contempt for the
business of protecting not only the privacy of individuals but
the secrets of the Nation. A counter-culture President who came
of political age when Richard Nixon engaged in similar abuses of
the FBI must be held accountable not only for crimes of the
former kind but also closely examined for his contribution to
possible crimes that may be jeopardizing the latter.

1. See the Center’s Decision
Briefs of that time entitled ‘No Aldrich
Ameses at the White House’: Are You Sure? Real Care In Order As
the NSC Reorganizes ‘C.I.’ ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=94-D_45″>No. 94-D 45, 1 May 1994) and The
Clinton Security Clearance Melt-Down: ‘No-Gate’ Demonstrates
‘It’s the People, Stupid’ ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=94-D_32″>No. 94-D 32, 25 March 1994).