Investigation Clears FBI Counsel of Wrongdoing

An internal Justice Department review released Friday clears FBI general counsel Howard M. Shapiro of legal or professional wrongdoing in his dealings with the Clinton White House.

However, the department’s watchdog office said Shapiro showed “very poor judgment” in giving the White House a warning that a Republican House committee was about to reveal the existence of a memo that appeared to contradict an earlier statement by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Shapiro already had admitted as much. In a House hearing last year, he said that he made “a horrific blunder” by tipping off the White House about the memo that suggested Mrs. Clinton was behind the hiring of controversial White House security chief D. Craig Livingstone.

Congressional Republicans cited this incident, among others, as evidence that Shapiro was too cozy in his dealings with the White House and was possibly short-circuiting investigations of the administration by House committees and Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr.

The 29-page report from the Justice Department sought to untangle the complicated and overlapping investigations and the FBI general counsel’s role in them.

“Howard Shapiro did not engage in professional misconduct,” the report concludes, and his “actions were not motivated by personal or political ambitions.”

More broadly, Justice’s review of five separate incidents shows how the FBI has been put in a no-win position as a result of relentless investigations involving the Clinton White House.

If top FBI officials consult with their superiors in the White House--as Shapiro did on several occasions--the bureau can be accused of putting its role as an independent investigating agency in jeopardy.

If they fail to consult with top White House officials, however, as they did regarding intelligence reports of alleged efforts by the Chinese government to influence U.S. elections, they can be accused of concealing vital national security information from the leaders of the executive branch.

Shapiro released a statement Friday saying that he was “gratified” by the report’s findings.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert L. Livingston (R-La.), who requested the review, was traveling in China and aides said he would have no comment until next week.

Livingston had complained about several minor incidents involving Shapiro, including his giving the White House an advance copy of a book by former FBI agent Gary Aldrich and his speaking to White House counsel Jack Quinn about a letter Quinn was writing about House investigators.

But the bulk of the report focuses on an aspect of the scandal involving FBI background files, which were mistakenly sent to the White House at the request of then-security chief Livingstone.

On July 25, 1996, Rep. William F. Clinger (R-Pa.) revealed in a House speech that the FBI file on Livingstone, a political operative with little experience in security work, included a memo from then-White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum saying that Livingstone had come to his post “highly recommended” by Mrs. Clinton.

The first lady had earlier denied recommending Livingstone.

Ten days before Clinger’s speech, Shapiro had warned the White House about the Nussbaum memo found in Livingstone’s background file.

Initially, Shapiro defended his action as an attempt to put the White House and Congress on an even footing. Since Clinger’s staff was being shown the background files, Shapiro wanted to alert the White House to the same information, he said. The Justice Department report notes that Shapiro had earlier denounced a White House request for hundreds of background files as “egregious violations of privacy.”

Reviewing the entire matter, the report by Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility concludes that the general counsel’s warning to the White House about the Nussbuam memo “exacerbated a political problem by contributing to the appearance that the FBI, and particularly Shapiro, was not sufficiently independent of the White House.”

His actions, however, do not “rise to the level of professional misconduct [such as] intentionally violating a professional obligation or acting in reckless disregard of it,” the report says.