Fbi Agent’s Notes Link First Lady To Filegate
Less than two months after President Clinton took office, the White House counsel told an FBI agent that the first lady had recommended Craig Livingstone as head of the White House security office, according to documents disclosed Thursday.
Under Livingstone, the security office improperly obtained as many as 900 confidential FBI files.
The documents were disclosed Thursday by Rep. William F. Clinger Jr., R-Pa., who is investigating the acquisition of the files. The White House has said that the acquisition of the files was an innocent if regrettable mistake by Livingstone, who resigned his job last month.
But Clinger and other Republicans have insisted that there are many troubling aspects to the affair, including the question of who hired Livingstone. The White House has said he was hired by Vincent Foster, the deputy White House counsel who killed himself in June 1993.
The documents disclosed Thursday are a summary of an interview in early March 1993 by FBI Agent Dennis Sculimbrene of Bernard Nussbaum, then White House counsel. Sculimbrene was doing an investigation on whether Livingstone was suitable for the job of running the security office.
Clinger said that in the notes, Sculimbrene writes that Nussbaum told him that Livingstone had come “highly recommended by Hillary Clinton.” Furthermore, according to the Sculimbrene account, Nussbaum said that Hillary Clinton and Livingstone’s mother were old acquaintances.
The White House struck back quickly Thursday, attacking Sculimbrene’s veracity as well as repeating earlier denials by Hillary Clinton and the President that she had any role in hiring Livingstone.
In addition, the White House released a statement by Livingstone’s mother, Gloria, insisting that she had never met Hillary Clinton except for a brief encounter last year in the White House when she was part of a group thanked by the first lady for helping decorate the White House Christmas tree.