Agent Details Drug Use In White House Says Aides Used Drugs As Recently As Inauguration Day

White House aides used drugs as recently as President Clinton’s Inauguration Day, an FBI agent told Congress in a deposition released Friday.

And, in another deposition reflecting on the White House, the man who replaced Craig Livingstone as security chief said he gave Livingstone a top-secret clearance in 1995 without reviewing his FBI background file.

The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee released several depositions that detail security concerns at the White House. They were taken during the panel’s investigation of the FBI files controversy.

In one, the new White House security chief acknowledged he failed to review Livingstone’s FBI background file before issuing him a top security clearance in 1995.

Charles Easley, who was in charge of giving such clearances, said he did so after being assured by the White House counsel’s office that “there were no problems” in the file. It has since been learned that Livingstone’s file contains references to occasional drug use up until 1985.

“In hindsight, it was a mistake, but it is what I did,” Easley is quoted as saying in a deposition last week.

Easley said Livingstone had already been granted a clearance by the CIA for access to data that is even more highly classified than top secret. That clearance was given after the CIA reviewed Livingstone’s background file in May 1993.

Livingstone, who resigned under fire, was involved in the collection of hundreds of FBI background files on present and former administration workers including several prominent Republicans.

Meanwhile, FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene, who did background checks at the White House for two decades, told congressional investigators some workers approved to work at the Clinton White House had drug use detected in their background investigations as recently as Inauguration Day.

“It was older people who had used illegal drugs much more recently, as recently as the Inaugural,” Sculimbrene told the committee. He later added: “And I’m not talking about junior staffers, either.”

Sculimbrene retired from the FBI on Friday, saying he had undergone “unjustified changes in my professional assignments” and had been subjected to “assaults on my career” since he raised concerns about the White House travel office firings and the handling of FBI background files.