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FBI FILES
JUNE 26, 1996
TRANSCRIPT
Elizabeth Farnsworth gets the perspectives of two key members of the House Government Reform Committee, Republican Christopher Shays of Connecticut and Democrat James Moran of Virginia, on the events in today's hearings looking into the release of FBI files to the White House.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Thank you both for being with us. Rep. Shays, what did you learn today? What do you know now that you didn't know before the hearings today?
REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, (R) Connecticut: You know, I have to tell you I don't think we learned all that much. It was kind of a cat and mouse game. We had a hard time even getting them to agree on who hired Craig Livingstone. I mean, it was like we just couldn't get to first base, frankly. I think you had--your hearing data gave us a good taste. I mean, your description of the hearing was in pretty good taste, but, you know, this goes way back. I mean, this goes back to 1993, when you had people fired and then an attempt by the White House to smear them in terms of saying they had done illegal acts, and this is--just continues to grow. And now we know it's not 400 files; it's 700 files. But we really don't know who all the people were in the files, the additional names, and we just don't know where this leads.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Moran, what do you think you learned today?
REP. JAMES MORAN, (D) Virginia: We confirmed what we already knew if we were looking for the facts. The fact is that no wrongdoing was committed, that there was no intent to commit wrongdoing, that, in fact, the reason that these names were pursued in terms of getting a summary FBI file on them was that Nancy Gammell, who was a Bush administration holdover, directed Mr. Marceca to this outdated Secret Service list that he went through in, in rigid alphabetical order. But we found out that he did nothing with any of that information. So none of it was shared. Nobody's privacy was violated. He made a mistake. He should have been sensitive enough to recognize some of these names. But he indicated that he wasn't sure that these people shouldn't continue to have some legitimate access to the White House because a number of those people on the list were Bush administration hold-overs that were not political types. Some of the political types he probably figured perhaps they should continue to have access as well. The Secret Service provided continued, sustained access from one administration to another. It was a mistake. It's unfortunate that they weren't more careful about who they got FBI files on, but no one was harmed. And I think that's the bottom line. And there was no intent to harm anyone.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Shays, you don't--you don't agree that that's what was learned today, that--
REP. SHAYS: Well, no, we learned very little. I mean, we haven't learned really how they used these files. We've, we've learned what they said. We've learned what they've claimed, but, but we haven't learned what they did and why they did it. And so I mean I just--you know, Jim is making a very definitive statement. It's the same kind of definitive statement that when he went after the--the Republicans for having concern about how Billy Dale was treated and ultimately apologized to him. It's the same kind of definitive statement that was made when we wanted to hold the White House in contempt because they were using executive privilege not to give us this data. And when we finally got some of it, we got 400--a list of 400 people whose FBI files were requested by the White House after they no longer worked in the White House. James Baker was not looking to work at the White House. It was wrong, maybe even illegal for the White House to have these files when, in fact, nobody they had these files on was looking to work at the White House. They weren't active people in the White House. There is no legitimate explanation for why they had these files.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Rep. Shays, just one question. Do you think that you did not learn more today because they were stonewalling, is that what you're saying?
REP. SHAYS: Well, they were definitely stonewalling, but that's been the process. I mean, understand this started in 1993, the summer of 1993. Mr. Clinger has been doggedly pursuing this, and each time we learn more, the story gets worse, and we still continue to have a stonewall both in--with my colleagues, frankly, and by Democratic colleagues in Congress and the White House. We will continue to learn more. We will get to the bottom of it, the sooner the better.
REP. MORAN: Well, you say there's stonewalling, Chris. That's your own personal assumption. You are saying that because you didn't get what you wanted to get because the facts didn't confirm your worst suspicions. Everything they said, that I just repeated, was said under oath. They were sworn under oath. And all I did was to repeat what they said. There was no--they committed no wrongdoing. They didn't intend to commit any wrongdoing. They explained exactly how they got the files. And, you know, they're going to continue--
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That's what I--
REP. MORAN: --to pursue this--
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: --I wanted to ask that too.
REP. MORAN: --until they get what they, they want, some, some way to embarrass the White House, but they certainly got none of that today.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let me ask you both, starting with you, Rep. Moran, are we any closer after today to finding out where this list came from, the list that supplied the names that went to the FBI?
REP. MORAN: Sure. They, they--it came from the Secret Service. It was an outdated list, and it was a Bush hold-over, Nancy Gammell, whose responsibility was this project update, and she is the one that assigned Mr. Marceca to continue the project update. Now if the Bush administration had done what the Carter administration did, which was to provide these FBI summary files for all the Carter hold-overs who were not political types, who continued to work for the Reagan administration, if the Bush administration had done the same thing for the Clinton administration, this never would have happened. But the Bush administration took all the files with them, so there was nothing, so they had to reinvent the wheel all over again.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Rep. Shays, what about that, the source of the list, what have we learned about that?
REP. SHAYS: No. Two of the witnesses would not tell us where that list came from. They said the list was basically in the security vault but did not know who asked them to proceed on this list. So I mean, I just take strong issue with Jim, but ultimately, you know, the facts are going to come out. And I feel fairly comfortable that right now there's a lot of unanswered questions, and we're going to get to those answers eventually. Please understand first we learned it was 400 people they did not have the right to have access to. Then we learned it's 700. We're going to find out from the FBI why they wouldn't give any of these files. These were people who were not actively working at the White House. They had no right to it. And then we learned seven months after Billy Dale had left and Mr. Moran apologized to Billy Dale this file was given to the White House to smear Billy Dale. I mean, it just is--it just is unbelievable.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Was there any indication, this is to you, Rep. Shays, today in today's hearings that anybody higher up in the White House, higher than Mr. Nussbaum, for example, had any part in any of this?
REP. SHAYS: No, there's no absolutely evidence that has come out today that would, you know, affect the President, the First Lady, the Vice President, or anyone close to them. Uh, but we are continuing to--continuing to get information, and we're going to have other people testify.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And what is your response to the criticisms made during the hearing--we saw some of them in the piece before this--that, that the hearing--that people were smearing the witnesses at the hearing?
REP. SHAYS: Well, I have to say, I mean, I think, I think I even got a little angry when I--when I had a hard time in my five minutes, and that's all I was given, to ascertain who hired Craig Livingstone, and they took almost five minutes to answer that question. I mean, almost everyone in the country would be able to say who hired them for the job. And that's the kind of stonewalling that just takes a while. But we're going to persevere. If they think that just being--taking a long time and being coy and not answering the questions directly will, will help their cause, I don't think so.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Moran, on the question of smearing.
REP. MORAN: Stonewalling is not the same as giving facts that you don't want to believe. I think that there was deliberate smearing. You know, they've held this guy Livingstone out to dry, trashed him in every possible way. He's not going to be able to get another job. We found out today he got an award from the Secret Service for doing such a good job. He actually was much more articulate than the individual that he's been portrayed to be. But he's left out to dry. He's not going to get another job, and he's detritus, as far as everybody is concerned. He's expendable. They'll probably do the same thing to Marceca, and they're going to go as high up as they can. We found out that Nussbaum didn't know anything about it, but here we have a headline on the Washington Times saying that he was the one that got these files. He didn't know anything about it.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Gentlemen, that's all the time we have. Thank you both for being with us.
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