Whistle-Blower Stuns White House

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 13, 2000 | by Larry Klayman

A former White House staffer confirms Insight revelations that 4,000 e-mails dealing with Filegate, Chinagate and Monica Lewinsky have been hidden by the Clinton administration.

Sheryl L. Hall is the former manager of computer operations in the Clinton White House. Now her public testimony has confirmed a dramatic story first reported in Insight by Paul M. Rodriguez ("Trove of `Lost' E-mails at White House," Dec. 28, 1998): The Clinton administration has suppressed more than 100,000 pages of e-mail evidence in legal proceedings involving Filegate, Chinagate and the Monica Lewinsky scandals sought under subpoena by Judicial Watch, two congressional committees and the Office of the Independent Counsel.

Whistle-blower Hall, a GS-15-level civil servant, was driven from the White House for challenging the legality of using the $1.7 million White House Office Data Base, or WHODB, for political purposes. Hall also was questioned about first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's security agents, who collected and riffled through FBI files on hundreds of leading Republicans.

Represented by Judicial Watch, Hall has filed a lawsuit charging Mrs. Clinton with harassment and implicating high-ranking Clinton White House officials in the Filegate, WHODB and e-mail cover-ups. Hall swears under oath that administration officials threatened her and others as part of what may be the most massive incident of obstruction of justice in U.S. history. She also says she was told "by White House Associate Counsel Michelle Peterson that `our strategy' for the Filegate lawsuit was to `stall' because `we had just a couple of more years to go.'" Hall says, "I took this to mean that the Clinton White House's strategy was to stall the Filegate case until Bill [and Hillary] Clinton's term of office was completed."

In her sworn statement Hall recalls that Mark Lindsay, director of the White House Office of Administration, told a computer contractor that he had "a jail cell" with that contractor's "name on it" if he divulged any information about the Project X effort to hide thousands of White House e-mails that still have not been released.

The missing evidence -- believed by investigators to have been hidden at the direction of Mrs. Clinton -- was discovered as a result of a computer glitch in May 1998, showing that e-mail messages involving nearly 500 computer users had not been turned over to investigators as required by subpoena in various proceedings. These messages, which Hall says are in the custody of a computer contractor, Northrop Grumman Corp., span a period from August 1996 to November 1998 -- a time highly relevant to the Filegate, Chinagate and Lewinsky scandals.

The most compelling element of Hall's revelations is that they can be confirmed by independent analysis of the e-mail tapes as well as the testimony of witnesses inside and outside the White House. Once confirmed, Hall's revelations likely would result in criminal proceedings for obstruction of justice.

After Hall's revelations were attributed to her by the Washington Times, the independent counsel and congressional authorities contacted her through Judicial Watch, which on her behalf offered cooperation on the condition that, in the presence of her Judicial Watch lawyers, she be allowed to meet personally with Independent Counsel Robert Ray, House Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton of Indiana and Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson of Tennessee. In the past, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, Burton and Thompson have delegated investigatory matters to staffers and have not personally followed up on important leads. Neither the independent counsel, Burton nor Thompson previously have found the time during the last six years to meet with Judicial Watch attorneys to receive evidence that the public-interest watchdog group has uncovered in its investigations of Clinton scandals.

The legal watchdog has petitioned the courts in its Filegate and Chinagate cases to conduct evidentiary hearings (minitrials) to determine why the e-mail evidence was not produced according to subpoena and to mete out appropriate sanctions, including but not limited to criminal penalties. Included in the request is a suggested list of White House and Northrop Grumman officials who should be asked to appear before the courts to answer questions, under oath, about this apparent obstruction of justice.

Also appearing would be Hall, who as demonstrated in affidavits submitted to the courts is willing to testify about crimes she witnessed in the Clinton White House. Her full affidavit has been posted on Insight's Website at www.insightmag.com and at www.judicialwatch.org.