Barr sues White House, Justice

Both the White House and the Department of Justice are being
sued for collecting and maintaining FBI files on Rep. Bob Barr, R-Georgia,
without first notifying him about the files as required by the Privacy Act.

In events related to Filegate, the White House had assembled a special file
on Barr, a House manager during the impeachment trial, for the alleged
purpose of discrediting him and interfering with Senate impeachment
procedures. The lawsuit’s complaint, filed on behalf of Barr by
Judicial Watch, seeks to have the Clinton White
House
turn over the congressman’s files to Barr as the law requires the
White House to do.

In the legal watchdog’s ongoing $90 million Filegate class action suit
against the White House, Judicial Watch had earlier uncovered other files
that the White House had on Barr. The files that are the subject of this
new lawsuit, however, are separate files.

According to the official complaint, Barr is also suing the White House for
allegedly releasing Barr’s private records to such media personalities as
Larry Flynt, James Carville and Dan Moldea. Unauthorized public releases
of private records are also a violation of the Privacy Act, for the act
requires that an individual be asked for permission to publicly release his
records.

Barr, who first found out about the White House files in an article
that appeared in the Washington Times in 1998, sent a written request to the
president demanding “all documents, other than correspondence between me
and your office, that relate in any way to me.” Due to Privacy Act statutes,
Barr should have been granted his request. However, on July 20, 1998, more than three and a half months after Barr’s initial request, the U.S. General Accounting Office responded in a letter by denying Barr access to his
files.

“The deputy counsel to the president informed us that the White house
maintains files on budget and legislative issues, and that such files may
include information on the reported positions and voting records of various
members of the Congress,” began a GAO statement to Barr. “She further informed us that these files are retrievable by subject matter, not by named individuals, so the Privacy Act would not be applicable to the records.”

The GAO’s letter added, “We note also that, in a letter to you dated April
14, 1998, the White House stated that it does not believe the Privacy Act
applies to the president’s immediate personal staff and units within the
White House whose sole function is to advise and assist the president.”

Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman, disagrees with this statement by the
GAO. According to Klayman, Judge Royce C. Lamberth issued a decision in
the Filegate case which said the Privacy Act does apply to the White House.

“They (the White House staff) are flouting a decision of Judge Lamberth,”
said Klayman. “They refuse to recognize Judge Lamberth’s decision that the
Privacy Act applies to the White House.”

Regarding the allegations that Barr’s files were leaked to Flynt, Carville
and others, Barr has strong evidence, for at a press conference during
January of this year, Flynt’s daughter, Tonya Flynt-Vega, stated that
Carville had likely supplied her father with information from FBI files on
numerous politicians. And then on February 12 of this year, it was
reported in Capitol Hill Blue that the White House was undertaking a “campaign of retribution” against Barr.

According to the Feb. 12, article, one White House aide was quoted as
saying, “It’s payback time and payback will be a bitch. This won’t be a
gloat-free zone. It will be a ‘get even’ zone.”

On March 3 of this year, Barr requested that Attorney General Janet Reno
investigate the threats he and other House managers were receiving. In
Barr’s letter to Reno, he specifically requested an investigation to focus
“on attacks, and threats of attacks, on members of Congress before and
during the (impeachment) trial; specifically, the House managers.”

“These attacks came from Larry Flynt, James Carville, Dan Moldea and other
individuals and represent what appeared to be a deliberate and concentrated
effort to impede the House of Representatives from fulfilling its duties
under the United States Constitution to conduct matters relating to the
impeachment of the president, first in the House of Representatives and
then in the Senate,” explained Barr’s request.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Dennis K. Burke later responded to Barr’s
request of the Justice Department by saying that “a federal criminal
investigation is not warranted.” Burke also re-emphasized that the Privacy
Act does not apply to White House employees whose sole function is to
advise and assist the president.

In spite of the apparent lack of cooperation coming from the White House
and the Department of Justice, Klayman believes this lawsuit will swiftly come
to a close in favor of his client.

“This is a very potent case,” said Klayman. “It gets right to the heart of
the issue — collecting information on what are perceived to be Clinton
adversaries and using the information to smear them. It’s a very simple
case. It’s straight forward.”

Regarding the possible effects this lawsuit may have on Filegate itself,
Klayman said it can “break the whole issue wide open.”

WorldNetDaily contacted both the White House and the Department of Justice
for comments. However, the White House declined to comment claiming the
lawsuit papers hadn’t been served yet. The Department of Justice also
declined to comment saying the department had just received the papers and was in the process of reviewing them.