Focal Point Of Fbi Critics Leaves Agency

The top lawyer at the FBI resigned Wednesday after a tenure in which he played a role in high-profile espionage and criminal cases such as the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, but was criticized for his contacts with the White House in matters that stemmed from the controversy over FBI background files.

The lawyer, FBI general counsel Howard M. Shapiro, a close associate of Director Louis Freeh, will leave June 6 to become a partner at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering.

In a statement Wednesday praising Shapiro’s work, Freeh credited him with helping to reduce “needless turf battles” between the FBI and the CIA.

Shapiro was popular within the agency, regarded as a cool-headed legal adviser in difficult cases like the standoff with anti-government militants in Montana and the Unabomber investigation. But to outsiders he was a focal point of criticism that the FBI had been too eager to please the White House.

Shapiro played no role in the decision by FBI employees to turn over hundreds of background files to the White House security office in 1993 and 1994. But he subsequently led an investigation into how the White House obtained the files.

In a report in March, the Office of Professional Responsibility in the Justice Department criticized Shapiro for some decisions, including alerting the White House that congressional investigators had seen an FBI file concerning Craig Livingstone, the former White House security director.

But the report cleared Shapiro of any wrongdoing and said he had not acted from political motives.