Speaking of chickens coming home to roost:
Who Will Run the White House Now?
NewsMax.com
January 10, 2000
Another former Clinton staffer has come forward to describe the real boss of White House operations as not the president but first lady Hillary Clinton.
The picture emerging is of the president's wife not only running the show but also making the political hires to do her bidding within the offices of the chief executive.
Nor is it merely a matter of passing academic interest that someone never elected or appointed to any federal executive office should be exercising the duties given only to the president under the Constitution.
These revelations are coming, under oath, as part of a lawsuit of growing import that is developing in federal district court against President Clinton's wife, who has moved out of the White House and is now residing in New York so as to run for the Senate from that state.
It could well influence the course of the contest between the first lady and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
And it raises an interesting operational question: In Hillary Clinton's absence, who will be running the principal day-to-day White House functions?
The lawsuit that simply won't go away has to do with the "Filegate" scandal, in which the White House somehow happened to have on hand no fewer than 900 confidential FBI personnel files on Republicans who worked there at one time or another during the Reagan and Bush administrations – purely a coincidence, according to Clinton lawyers.
President Clinton dismissed the whole Filegate affair as "an honest, bureaucratic snafu."
His wife has sworn in an affidavit that she had nothing to do with, or any knowledge of, how the FBI files came to be in the White House.
A key figure in the scandal is D. Craig Livingstone, the ex-White House security chief who had charge of those files.
Livingstone called the presence of the FBI files in the White House an "error."
The first lady denied having anything to do with hiring Livingstone.
How he came to be on the payroll lingered as one of those White House mysteries – until Judicial Watch filed the Filegate suit in behalf of federal employees whose rights under the Privacy Act, it asserts, were violated.
Now, according to the Washington Times, two former Clinton staff members have signed affidavits laying it at the feet of the first lady:
• The most recent, Deborah Perroy, who was once a member of the National Security Council support staff, said, "It was widely known at the Clinton White House that Hillary Clinton was running things and was responsible for the hiring of the political staff, such as Livingstone.
"Livingstone was really working for Mrs. Clinton, as far as everyone knew, and everyone dropped everything to accommodate Mr. Livingstone's request."
• That squares with an earlier affidavit by Sheryl Hall, a former White House computer specialist, who swore White House staffers "understood that Craig Livingstone was brought to the White House by Mrs. Clinton and that Mr. Livingstone spoke for Mrs. Clinton.
"Consequently, to oppose a request or instruction from Livingstone was to oppose Mrs. Clinton."
During the seven years she worked there, she said, Mrs. Clinton ran the White House and "based on my personal observations and experience, as well as my interaction with numerous White House staffers, it was clear to me that Mrs. Clinton had operational control of the White House, including, but not limited to, the hiring and firing of personnel."
She said "a coterie" of staffers hired by the first lady acted as her agents.
"Mrs. Clinton acted through these individuals, and instructions from them were to be acted upon as if they came directly from Mrs. Clinton," she testified.
Former FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene also has said the first lady was responsible for Livingstone's hiring.
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