Filegate: Wetzl's statement
Scott Eckelman
From the Congressional Filegate hearings Jun 26, 1996.
Lisa Wetzl's statement:
Mr. Clinger, Ms. Collins, good afternoon.
I was employed at the Office of Personnel Security beginning in June 1993 as
a White House intern. In August 1993 I became a staff assistant in the
Office of Personnel Security and was promoted to executive assistant in the
fall of 1994. I left that office in September 1995 and presently work for
the Department of the Army.
All of the staff in the Office of Personnel Security at that time were
located in one room in the Old Executive Office Building. Off of that room
was a locked door that led into a vault that the Office of Personnel
Security shared with Records Management. Others who worked in the Office of
Personnel Security at that time when I began to work there were Craig
Livingstone, Mari Anderson, and Nancy Gemmel.
At the start of my time in the Office of Personnel Security, most of my work
was focused on the paperwork for full field investigations for new White
House employees. This process began with the Secret Service performing an
NCIC check which usually took less than one day. After that check, an
employee would be put on a 24 hour access list for the complex. Office of
Personnel Security staff would then request an FBI name check which was
initiated by sending over a pre-printed memo to the FBI liaison. The name
check took approximately two weeks. When the name check was favorably
returned, the individual was issued a temporary hard pass. When the name
check was complete, the Office of Personnel Security sent the same
pre-printed memo to the FBI liaison with a request for a full field
investigation. Attached to the form was a Standard Form 86 which had to be
completed by the employee. Much of my initial work in the office involved
making sure that the forms were filled out correctly. Once the completed
forms were sent to the FBI, the results of the full field investigation were
sent to an associate White House counsel.
Another project that was being undertaken was the reconstruction of the
files of the many holdover employees, detailees, agency representatives,
etc. who had access to the White House complex. These included permanent
White House employees and those detailed to the White House from agencies.
I was informed that this project was necessary because at the end of every
administration all of the security files of people with access to the White
House complex are boxed up and sent to the National Archives with the
Presidential papers. Therefore, there were no files on holdover employees
and there was no way to tell when those employees needed to have the routine
update of the FBI background investigation, but I understood it was required
every five years. This undertaking was known as the Update Project.
I became aware of the need to do the Update project from Nancy Gemmel.
Nancy was the only career employees left in the office at that time since
all of the others had retired either at the end of the Bush administration
or a few months thereafter. She was our primary source of information on
procedures. Prior to her retirement in August 1993 I was a t a meeting with
Nancy and Mari Anderson in which Nancy was giving us as much information as
she could about what needed to be done and how it should be done. I do not
remember exactly what she said about the Update Project but I came away with
a general understanding of the goals of the project. I also knew that she
had started on the project and she left the materials she had been using in
the vault.
Nancy retired at about the same time Tony Marceca's detail began. I did
not supervise or work on projects with Tony, but because we were all in one
room, I had a general understanding of what he was doing. Like the rest of
us in the office, I understood that at the start of his detail, he was
primarily working on the paperwork for FBI full field investigations of new
White House employees. At some point after he started I understood that he
began to work on the Update Project.
I do not know the details of how Tony was doing the Update Project. I could
see, however, that he was using a Secret Service list because of the
distinctive green and white computer paper on which these lists are printed.
In addition, while I knew these lists were not entirely accurate, they were
the only source of information that Office of Personnel Security could work
from in trying to determine the names of all of the holdover employees.
Tony left our office in February of 1994. For many months, no substantive
work was done on the Update Project. I knew that Tony had left some files
he had accumulated in the vault, but I did not look at them, nor was I aware
of anyone else looking at them until I began to work on the project in the
late fall of 1994.
When I first picked up the project, I looked at the materials both Nancy and
Tony had gathered in their work on the Update Project. Nancy's materials
were in the vault and they consisted of a Secret Service list and hundreds
of completed one page FBI request forms with Bernard Nussbaum's name on it.
These forms were stacked in alphabetical order. When I looked at the Secret
Service list she had left I knew immediately that it was out of date. It
was extremely long and appeared to contain hundreds of names from past
administrations. These names were listed in alphabetical order. I do not
recall if it had any indication of whether an employee was active or
inactive. Although I could not be certain, it looked to me as if Nancy had
attempted to complete an FBI request form for each name on the Secret
Service list. I determined that these forms and the list had so many out of
date names that they would be more work to sort through than to start over
from scratch. Therefore, I threw away this list and the forms.
In looking at the files Tony had accumulated, I was struck immediately by
the sheer number of files. I noted that they were in alphabetical order
from A to G, and the files seemed to vastly outnumber the White House staff
whose names would fall in that range. In looking at the labels on the
files, I noticed many names that I did not recognize. The first name that
jumped out at me was Marlin Fitzwater. I immediately concluded that Tony
must have ordered previous reports for every person on whatever out of date
Secret Service list he had been working from. As I reviewed the names on
the labels, I also determined that Tony had accumulated many of the files
that I did need. I was exasperated that I would now have to sort through a
lot of useless files in order to pull out the ones I needed. At no time was
I alarmed by what Tony had done. I thought he had simply made a mistake
that I was going to have to clean up.
The files Tony had left were color coded with orange labels which indicated
White House staff. I do not recall seeing a Secret Service list in or
around those files. However, in the course of assuming the Update Project,
I learned that files for several other categories of holdover employees had
already been requested, I presume by either Nancy or Tony. These files had
already been incorporated into our working files of active pass holders and
were therefore not grouped together in a separate bin. Over the next
several months I culled through the files Tony had left. By September 1995
when I left the Office of Personnel Security, I believed the Update Project
was complete.
My technique for sorting through Tony's files for determining what
additional previous reports I should order from the FBI was to start with a
Secret Service list. The list I used was provided to us by the Secret
Service on a monthly basis but we could ask for updated copies more
frequently. I understood that this was the Secret Service's list of active
pass holders. It was well known around our office that the Secret Service
list included names of people who no longer had active passes. I would
check out each name on the list before ordering a previous report from the
FBI by calling that office in the White House where that person supposedly w
orked. I also asked the supervisors of various offices to write me a list
of the holdover employees who worked in those offices. In this fashion I
was able to develop my own list of those who were truly holdover employees.
On many occasions I would inform the women who worked in the Secret Service
office who had provided us with the list that their list contained names
that should no longer be there, or that persons were listed as working in
the wrong office. As time passed, these lists became more up to date.
After determining which of Tony's files I did not need I put them in boxes
to send to the Office of Records Management. Consistent with standard
practice, I typed an inventory sheet containing the names on the labels of
these files. I sent this inventory sheet with the boxes to Records
Management. In the course of finishing the Update Project, I occasionally
discovered that I had sent to Records Management a file for someone who was
in fact an active employee, detailee, etc. I requested and received these
files back from Records Management. I put these files with all the other
files of the Office of Personnel Security on active White House employees in
the vault.
During the time I worked the Update Project I reviewed the content only of
files of employees whose active status I had confirmed. I was not reviewing
the files for content, but to determine the date of their last background
investigation. At no time did anyone ask me to provide them a file of any
past administration official, and I have no knowledge of anyone in the
Clinton administration using these files for any improper purpose.
Thank You.
End of statement.
--
Scott E.
Scott Eckelman
Scott Eckelman wrote in article <5vhk34$4...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>...
A couple of points of interest in her statement:
>At the start of my time in the Office of Personnel Security, most of my
work
>was focused on the paperwork for full field investigations for new White
>House employees. This process began with the Secret Service performing an
>NCIC check which usually took less than one day.
Note that her reference to NCIC checks is clearly in the procedures
for new employees, not for the prior administration employees. Some,
in particular Charles Smith (SOFTWAR), have claimed that an NCIC
check was done on everyone. I believe that Wetzl's statement is the
source for their claim, and as such, the claim is clearly refuted.
Also note that the NCIC checks were done by the Secret Service, not
by the Office of Personnel Security. I have seen at least one claim which
said that there was an NCIC terminal in the Security Office. Based on
the fact that these checks were farmed out to the Secret Service, that
does not appear to be the case.
<deleted>
>After determining which of Tony's files I did not need I put them in boxes
>to send to the Office of Records Management. Consistent with standard
>practice, I typed an inventory sheet containing the names on the labels of
>these files. I sent this inventory sheet with the boxes to Records
>Management. In the course of finishing the Update Project, I occasionally
>discovered that I had sent to Records Management a file for someone who was
>in fact an active employee, detailee, etc. I requested and received these
>files back from Records Management. I put these files with all the other
>files of the Office of Personnel Security on active White House employees
in
>the vault.
The Filegate scandal first came to light when it was discovered that
Billy Dale's file (of the White House Travel Office) had been requested
from the FBI many months after he had left. As the result of a
congressional
subpoena, his file, along with several boxes of other files along with their
inventory lists were returned to the FBI. I believe that these boxes which
Lisa Wetzl prepared were in fact the boxes returned to the FBI.
At that time, it was noted and re-iterated later in testimony by the FBI,
that
some of the files indicated on the inventories were not returned. This
may be where I got the idea that some of the files were checked out,
although I need to do some further checking. In any case, Wetzl's
explanation of retrieving some of the files back from Records Management
would explain it - unless the inventories were re-typed, the files which
were returned to the Office of Personnel Security would be missing.
<deleted>
Scott E.