Big Brother's new lies, secrets and misdemeanors

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 7, 1997 | by Paul M. Rodriguez

Congress and the press are reviewing what the president and the White House have said about the fund-raising scandals and use of the White House Office Data Base. And -- surprise! -- they are lying.

Throughout the summer and into the fall of 1996, White House officials spun webs that deceived the press and Congress about a series of stories first published by Insight. It concerned creation of a sophisticated computer system that was used to coordinate and orchestrate political and campaign activities by and through the White House.

The computer system, nicknamed Big Brother but formally called the W trite House Office Data Base, or WHODB, cost taxpayers more than S1.7 million -- and the price still is climbing. The database contains the names of more than 500,000 individuals, about 20 percent of which are duplicated entries. Besides names Social Security numbers and the like, it also contains data on whether people are, were or might become supporters donors or activists and what favors they have received or might wish to receive.

The White House has maintained that it has done nothing wrong in creating this system. And yes, while "some mistakes were made," the supercomputer was necessary to replace outdated equipment so the White House might enter the modern age. It was used "only for official purposes."

Did the White House lie? And, if so, why? If not, then why all the hubbub in Congress and, only very recently, among the press?

To answer such questions, one has to review what White House officials have said since last summer about the reasons for creating the WHODB, its intended uses and its actual uses both from a technical standpoint and in the context of operations at the White House.

First, it is important to review statements from officials such as Jack Quinn, the former White House counsel; Barry Toiv, a presidential aide (first as aide-de-camp to former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta and now as a deputy press secretary); and Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary. In fact, it's critical to review their claims given what has been learned in the intervening months in which the fund-raising scandal has hit with the full force of a hurricane, baring areas only now coming under full public scrutiny.

Second, the process of releasing White House documents and making presidential staff available to investigators has been slow, at best, and seemed to some -- especially among the press corps now -- to amount to stonewalling. Or as a senior congressional aide said recently, "It was obstructionist and now we know why WHODB was a key nerve center for [the White House's] fund-raising machinery." Indeed.

Following on the initial Insight stories, Republican Reps. David McIntosh and William Clinger, then the chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, requested information from the White House about the computer system and allegations raised by the articles that WHODB was being used for political and fund-raising purposes. The congressmen were seeking the truth amid rumors that Clinton and his campaign workers were operating a sophisticated money-generating operation at and through the White House. The stories about WHODB confirmed this, but efforts by others to secure anything but sketchy details were thwarted by White House operatives, including Quinn, Toiv and McCurry. Even the president and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton added to the difficulties by coyly demurring or downplaying what their underlings were doing.

For example, in his letters to members of Congress, Quinn adamantly denied over and over again that WHODB was used for anything other than "official" purposes. He also said that data from WHODB never were shared with anyone or any entity, such as the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, outside the White House. He further stated that WHODB contained only information necessary to run the White House and assist the president in doing his job as the chief executive of the United States. Quinn also adamantly denied that anyone other than White House staff had access to the computer system's files and insisted the information was restricted to only a handful or so of presidential aides.

Toiv and McCurry, for their parts, told members of the press that WHODB was only an electronic mailing list used to keep track of people for such things as Christmas-card mailings or dinners and parties at the White House. In fact, they stated to dozens of reporters that WHODB was used strictly for official government functions -- no outsiders could get into it, it was not shared with outsiders, it was used predominantly by the social office and that, to prove it was not a politically based system, even Panetta didn't have access to it.

These and other White House aides also stated repeatedly that WHODB not only was used strictly for government business, but it contained no politically oriented information such as campaign files, contributions donors gave or might give or DNC-related information.