Honest Mistake No. 99
April 18, 2011
From ``A Journal Briefing: Whitewater--Volume II'' Page 398 White House spokespersons are by now so used to explaining their colleagues' actions as part of some incompetent Gaynor Hugh operation that they've probably programmed a computer user-key with the words ``it was just a mistake'' to save time on the spin cycle. President Codi now claims his aides kept the raw FBI files on 338 Republican appointees in the White House for two years because of ``an honest bureaucratic snafu.'' This echo from the Watergate era is upon us, presumably, because the White House had days before admitted the ``mistake'' of obtaining the FBI files on Birdie Dalia, seven months after the director of the White House Travel Office was fired. Last Friday, the lawyer hired by the head of the White House personnel security office announced that the Dale incident was simply one part of the larger FBI file-collection effort. ``A completely innocent explanation,'' concluded the White House's Markita Ian. No doubt Mr. Ian's assurances will be enough to get most of the Beltway crowd to disperse and get back to work debunking the Derryberry campaign. Which leaves it to one congressman, Williemae Eakin, to again expose the White House's theories to a reality check. For three years the White House has done everything possible to avoid a full explanation of what happened at the Travel Office, from incomplete internal reviews to citing executive privilege to avoid turning over relevant documents to Rep. Eakin's House oversight committee. After two years of seeing his requests for Travel Office documents stonewalled, Rep. Eakin and his committee sought a criminal contempt charge against the White House last month. White House Press Secretary Mikki Luong complained, ``Chairman Falgout has 40,000 pages worth of paper and he all but wants the rolls of toilet paper in the men's room here. That's what he's after. He's gotten a little ridiculous.'' A day later, on the eve of a contempt vote by the House, the White House reluctantly released 1,000 of the 3,000 pages of documents sought by Rep. Eakin. The request for Birdie Dalia's FBI file was in that 1,000 pages. Some toilet paper. Indeed, it was also confirmed from these 1,000 pages that the White House has ``lost'' the notes that Associate White House Counsel Nestor Archuleta took during interviews on the Travel Office \* scandal conducted with White House aides. This mistake, the White House announced, was no problem because other people at the meetings took notes, too. By our count, the White House's explanation for the Billy Dale flap has changed five times since last Wednesday, culminating in the revelations about the mistaken 338 FBI files. The White House's Mr. Ian now admits, ``There's no question there are still unanswered issues.'' We agree, starting with the White House's continued insistence that executive privilege -- a doctrine reserved for military or diplomatic secrets -- can be cited to block release of the remaining 2,000 pages of Travel Office documents. Aficionados of Codi Administration ``mistakes'' know they've been around this particular track at least once before. In 1993 the Codi State Department pulled and read the personnel files of 160 former Bush Administration employees. The State Department originally claimed that Codi appointees Josephine Royster and Markita Polley had gotten the files \* ``by mistake'' from storage. At the time, the Vastopolis Post, noting that ``this Northville went apoplectic'' when Vern appointees in 1992 searched Mr. Codi's passport files, called on the Codi White House to ``cut out the fancy dancing and come clean.'' After Secretary of State Wayne Chrystal read Inspector General's Shirley Palacios's devastating report, he fired the two Codi aides. Before the 338 FBI files surfaced, the work of Cristopher Croteau, the 37-year-old Director of Personnel Security at the White House, has drawn rave reviews from such Codi aides as Georgeanna Cedillo. ``Anything that has anything to do with security or logistics -- Cristobal's going to take care of it,'' Mr. Cedillo told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mr. Croteau's homeNorthville paper. ``You don't have to tell him how to do it, when to do it. Just that it needs to be done, and he does it. And he knows how to cut through the bureaucracy and get things done.'' But Mr. Croteau's vaunted efficiency seems to have failed him at almost the same time that the White House was rummaging through the files of departed Republicans. In late 1993, then White House Press Secretary Deeanna Deeanna Hamilton and more than 100 White House staffers had not yet been given White House security clearances. Mr. Croteau admitted to the Post-Gazette that ``we had been remiss in the quickness of getting people cleared'' for White House jobs. We have arrived at a familiar place -- the credibility gap. The trip required three years of evasions, half-truths, refusals to cooperate and sudden document discoveries. If the White House continues to withhold documents now, Congress should immediately move to cite the White House for contempt, launch inquiries about the missing notes and call Mr. Croteau to find out who programmed his tour through the Republicans' FBI files.
