Travelgate, or Cousingate
DEFRANK, THOMAS M.
Travelgate-or Cousingate? by Thomas M. DeFrank Travelgate is back this week-and to the dismay of a jittery White House, so is the distant presidential cousin who touched off the scandal in May...
...So is high-minded stalling...
...This week's hearings, however, last only one day...
...All this dirty linen is being aired twice this week, when the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee opens its investigation into Travelgate and when Billy Dale's trial begins in a federal district court...
...But he isn't expected to shed any light on what investigators say is a blizzard of unanswered questions...
...The White House rope-a-dope was designed to delay the hearings in hopes that Dale would be quickly convicted...
...As this magazine reported in September, sealed court records allege that veteran Clintonite Patsy Thomasson, now deputy director of the White House personnel office, importuned a colleague to deny any knowledge of the memo...
...The Clinton spin doctors have strung Rep...
...Dale is accused of embezzling $68,000 from news organizations...
...by Thomas M. DeFrank Travelgate is back this week-and to the dismay of a jittery White House, so is the distant presidential cousin who touched off the scandal in May 1993...
...In fact, it now emerges, the administration tried to fire her...
...he says he used the funds for legitimate travel office expenses...
...At the time, the White House disclosed that Cornelius had been reprimanded...
...He couldn't remember anything before," says one congressional aide, "and I doubt his memory will be any better now...
...Thomas M. DeFrank, a veteran White House correspondent, collaborated with James Baker on his memoirs, The Politics of Diplomacy...
...Now quit harassing us with some politically motivated fishing expedition...
...Why has the FBI been poking around in White House safes for the missing documents that court records allege Patsy Thomasson may have had in her possession at one time...
...In the end, it promoted her...
...Says one investigator, "They're keeping her inside the tent because she knows too much...
...Why do so many documents related to this affair appear to have vanished...
...A storm of publicity frustrated this cozy scheme...
...The committee will examine the machinations of Cornelius and Thomasson, as well as those of Clinton crony and Hollywood sitcom mogul Harry Thomason (no relation to Patsy...
...Finally, why did the attorney general of the United States telephone Clinger last week and ask him to delay the hearings, claiming that they might jeopardize Dale's prosecution...
...Whatever happens to Dale, the White House strategy has worked remarkably well so far, inadvertently helped along by Chairman Clinger's inexplicable reluctance to use his subpoena power to compel White House cooperation...
...Just how much did he tell Hillary Rodham Clinton about his own interest in the travel office...
...As the Whitewater hearings demonstrated, collective amnesia is rampant at the White House...
...Committee investigators are most interested in digging into the White House internal review, which slapped a few wrists but generally glossed over evidence of dubious actions by several Clinton aides...
...Despite the embarrassment she brought on the administration-she had filched documents from the travel office in an effort to persuade her superiors to replace director Billy Dale and four of his associates-she was eventually made deputy director of the advance office...
...Plenty of questions remain unanswered: Why has Harry Thomason declined to be interviewed about his involvement...
...William Clinger's committee along for months-promising to produce witnesses and documents, then threatening to withhold them on grounds of executive privilege before handing over some, but not all, of the key ones...
...Now The Weekly Standard has learned that Cornelius is the hitherto anonymous official whom a longtime Clinton aide encouraged to lie about a memo central to Travelgate...
...If that happens-and Dale's lawyers and supporters insist he will be vindicated-Clinton's men will spin this line: Sure, we could have handled the travel-office firings a little better, but we told you those holdover employees were crooks...
...Catherine Cornelius, aficionados will recall, was a ringleader of the bungled scheme to revamp the office that arranges travel for the White House press corps...
...Civil servants were to be fired, Clinton relative Cornelius would replace them, and lucrative charter business would flow to her friends at a travel agency in Little Rock...
...They focus on the tepid investigations of the travel office mess by the White House, Justice Department, General Accounting Office, and Internal Revenue Service...
...The committee is expected to conclude that further hearings will be necessary later this year, because so much remains unknown about the travel office affair...
...His lawyer, Robert Bennett, calls the investigation "nothing more than a witch hunt to embarrass Harry and the White House...
...The White House has agreed to allow John Podesta, who conducted the review, to testify...
...In June 1993, White House official Brian Foucart telephoned Cornelius at home and asked her to submit her resignation...
...Unless Clinger and his investigators begin playing hardball, Clinton's spinners will continue to keep the lid on the story...
...Cornelius refused to fall on her sword, and the White House nervously backed off...
Vol. 1 • October 1995 • No. 7
