"Filegate" Draft Report Calls For FBI Counsel's Head

WASHINGTON (CNN, Sept. 19) -- CNN has obtained a draft copy of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee's Republican majority report on the FBI files fiasco. The report, not yet complete, calls for chief FBI counsel Howard Shapiro to resign.

The report calls for Shapiro's resignation because of what it calls "blatant interference" with the investigation into the FBI files matter. The report charges that on numerous occasions, Shapiro cooperated with the White House inappropriately to shield information from the committee.

When asked for comment by CNN, an FBI spokesman said he would not respond until he had seen the report and provided an Aug. 1 statement by FBI Director Louis Freeh, in which he said Shapiro "enjoys my full confidence."

Again emphasizing the investigation was incomplete, the report admits that the committee "has yet to determine whether colossal incompetence or a sinister motive precipitated these events. We have yet to learn exactly who is Craig Livingstone, who hired him and why."

Livingstone is the now-resigned White House personnel security director, who brought in Defense Department investigation Anthony Marceca to help with background security checks. The report says, "Army detailee Anthony Marceca was given unfettered access to confidential FBI law enforcement files and allowed to remove confidential information despite his own inability to receive White House clearance."

The committee charges that Livingstone and Marceca's various depositions to the committee were "inconsistent both within and between their own statements."

The report criticizes the "cavalier approach" to security by the White House and calls this "a black eye on this White House." Repeating the charge that hundreds of files were improperly acquired, the report says it "was a violation of the constitutional rights of many upstanding citizens."

The report -- 205 pages for now -- will not be released until next week.

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Related Site:

• Committee on Government Reform and Oversight

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