High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton (18 page)
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Authors: Ann Coulter
BOOK: High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton
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It was the White House’s relentless attempt to return to the original script, to portray the dumped Travel Office employees as crooks, that constituted an abuse of power unparalleled—undreamed of—by any previous administration.
The problem was, to pull off the image-enhancing version of the firings, the White House needed the Travel Office employees actually to be corrupt and thieving. So no matter how weak the evidence was, White House aides continued to accuse the employees of corruption and kickbacks in the press, finally bringing in the FBI and the IRS to locate some criminality. That was what the image was supposed to be, not White House cronyism. Dale’s failure to be a crook wasn’t going to get in their way.
SMEARThe day of the purge
—May 19, 1993—the president set the tone. Explaining his role in the firings (none) Clinton elaborated: “All I know about it was I was told the people in charge of administering the White House found serious problems there and thought there was no alternative.”
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—May 19, 1993—the president set the tone. Explaining his role in the firings (none) Clinton elaborated: “All I know about it was I was told the people in charge of administering the White House found serious problems there and thought there was no alternative.”
24
The same day, White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers held a press briefing to inform reporters that an independent audit of the Travel Office had uncovered evidence of “gross mismanagement” and “very shoddy accounting practices.” Harry Thomason and Director of Media Affairs (and Cornelius boyfriend) Jeff Eller followed up in “off-the-record” briefings, telling reporters that the FBI was looking into “kickbacks” at the Travel Office.
(Eller had already tried to help his girlfriend’s career plans by asking FBI agents for damaging information on the Travel Office employees.
25
When it came out in the press that the leaker’s inamorata was none other than Cornelius, Eller expressed his empathy for the fired employees by bitterly complaining: “It’s unfortunate that my personal life is getting dragged into this.”
26
)
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When it came out in the press that the leaker’s inamorata was none other than Cornelius, Eller expressed his empathy for the fired employees by bitterly complaining: “It’s unfortunate that my personal life is getting dragged into this.”
26
)
Even months after Dale’s November 1995 acquittal on embezzlement charges, the first lady was still trying to portray him as a crook. She explained to ABC’s
20/20
that her interest in the Travel Office firings was limited to “the financial mismanagement” in the office.
27
20/20
that her interest in the Travel Office firings was limited to “the financial mismanagement” in the office.
27
All seven Travel Office employees were fired and then defamed by the announcement of an FBI investigation, even though only two Travel Office employees, Dale and his assistant, had anything to do with the office finances.
28
ABUSE OF FBI FILES28
Around the time of the firings,
someone in the White House asked Director of Personnel Security Craig Livingstone for Billy Dale’s file—despite the fact that later testimony indicated that no one at the White House even knew who Craig Livingstone was or what he was doing there. “I do remember that the files were discussed,” said Livingstone’s former executive assistant, Mari Anderson, under oath.
29
Anderson elaborated in her sworn statement, “I know Craig [Livingstone] discussed them [on the telephone], but with who, I don’t remember…. Craig was talking on the phone, and he asked [me or office assistant Lisa Wetzel] to go and pull these files, and I gave them to Craig.”
someone in the White House asked Director of Personnel Security Craig Livingstone for Billy Dale’s file—despite the fact that later testimony indicated that no one at the White House even knew who Craig Livingstone was or what he was doing there. “I do remember that the files were discussed,” said Livingstone’s former executive assistant, Mari Anderson, under oath.
29
Anderson elaborated in her sworn statement, “I know Craig [Livingstone] discussed them [on the telephone], but with who, I don’t remember…. Craig was talking on the phone, and he asked [me or office assistant Lisa Wetzel] to go and pull these files, and I gave them to Craig.”
Apparently, Livingstone was unable to accommodate the request fully: He did not have Dale’s “raw” FBI file, with all the unsubstantiated rumors FBI agents had been able to unearth. This is odd since the White House cover story on why Livingstone was mistakenly in possession of about nine hundred FBI files—including many on former cabinet members and other high-level staffers in the Reagan and Bush administrations—was that Livingstone had been conducting a review of all current White House staff. Dale’s file would fit into that description the way James Baker’s file, for example, wouldn’t. In any event, now that Dale was on the White House enemies list, Livingstone moved to correct the oversight.
In December 1993—seven months after Dale had been fired and Livingstone himself had revoked Dale’s security clearance—Livingstone’s office requested Dale’s raw background file from the FBI. (Craig Livingstone had been the person in charge of “securing” the Travel Office after Dale and his coworkers were fired.) The request form said, “The person named above is being considered for: ACCESS (S)” to the White House. Dale had been banned from the White House in May 1993. Still, his FBI file arrived at Livingstone’s office on January 6, 1994, and stayed there until December 1, 1994.
Livingstone and his office were not a few loose cannons; the assumption that sensitive FBI files could be plumbed for opposition research was apparently widespread at the Clinton White House. FBI Agent Dennis Sculimbrene said under oath that three White House political appointees had already asked him for derogatory material on all seven White House Travel Office employees even before the May 19 massacre. The three were Associate White House Counsel William Kennedy, Watkins’s deputy Patsy Thomasson, and Cornelius’s boyfriend Jeff Eller.
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FBI INVESTIGATION30
William Kennedy did not stop
at attempts to ferret out damaging information from the Travel Office employees’ FBI files. On May 12, right about the time when Thomason was again pleading his case directly to President and Mrs. Clinton, Kennedy contacted FBI headquarters directly to demand an investigation of the seven employees on the basis of Cornelius’s unsubstantiated allegations.
at attempts to ferret out damaging information from the Travel Office employees’ FBI files. On May 12, right about the time when Thomason was again pleading his case directly to President and Mrs. Clinton, Kennedy contacted FBI headquarters directly to demand an investigation of the seven employees on the basis of Cornelius’s unsubstantiated allegations.
James Bourke, the FBI supervisor who took Kennedy’s call, politely suggested to Kennedy that, to initiate an FBI investigation, he would need to come up with more specific claims of wrongdoing than, for example, the fact that a female employee had been shunned by the staff,
31
or that the same female employee believed that staffers were living beyond their means. And Bourke did not even know that the same female employee had designs on running the office herself or that two days earlier Hollywood producer Thomason had sent a memo to the White House complaining, again, that UltrAir—the charter airline Billy Dale used—had shut out his own company from providing White House travel.
32
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or that the same female employee believed that staffers were living beyond their means. And Bourke did not even know that the same female employee had designs on running the office herself or that two days earlier Hollywood producer Thomason had sent a memo to the White House complaining, again, that UltrAir—the charter airline Billy Dale used—had shut out his own company from providing White House travel.
32
Moreover, Kennedy could not even tell the FBI agent whether the alleged “kickbacks” involved the federal government’s money at all. Kennedy said he’d get back to Bourke.
The next day, May 13, Kennedy was more specific. This was the day Hillary was demanding that Watkins fire “those people” to open up slots for “our people.” He said the demand for an FBI investigation of the Travel Office came from “the highest levels” of the White House, and if the FBI refused to begin investigating the Travel Office within the next fifteen minutes he would turn to a more responsive federal agency: the IRS.
33
33
Only after Kennedy had demanded an FBI investigation into the Travel Office within “fifteen minutes,” and after he had made a non-idle threat to call in the IRS, did anyone at the White House attempt to ascertain whether there was any basis for an investigation. The White House still had no evidence of corruption in the Travel Office, apart from the claims of financially interested parties Cornelius and Thomason.
The White House turned to an accounting firm that happened to be in the White House anyway, helping Al Gore with his “reinventing government” ploy. White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster, Jr., asked KPMG Peat Marwick to glance through the Travel Office books the following weekend to see if anything was amiss. Even this eleventh-hour review was not an official audit; a single auditor simply performed an informal review of the Travel Office’s books. He discovered what anyone who had worked with Dale would have known: Dale’s records on about $7 million worth of yearly travel by the press were not in tip-top shape. About $18,000 of the press’s money was unaccounted for, and various other payments were undocumented.
Dale was not given a chance to respond to the charges.
On the basis of this slipshod,
post hoc
rationalization for an FBI investigation that had already been authorized at the “highest levels” of the White House, the White House forced the FBI to investigate. This allowed the White House to justify the firings later as the result of a criminal probe, which resulted from the Peat Marwick review. In fact, however, the events went in precisely the opposite direction: the decision to fire the Travel Office staff was followed by the White House’s demand for a criminal probe by the FBI, which was followed by an informal review of the Travel Office books by Peat Marwick.
post hoc
rationalization for an FBI investigation that had already been authorized at the “highest levels” of the White House, the White House forced the FBI to investigate. This allowed the White House to justify the firings later as the result of a criminal probe, which resulted from the Peat Marwick review. In fact, however, the events went in precisely the opposite direction: the decision to fire the Travel Office staff was followed by the White House’s demand for a criminal probe by the FBI, which was followed by an informal review of the Travel Office books by Peat Marwick.
Three days after the firings, the White House released a statement from the FBI stating that Peat Marwick had produced “sufficient information for the FBI to determine that additional criminal investigation is warranted.” Publicizing an FBI investigation this way contravened FBI standing policy of never confirming or denying pending investigations. This much the White House later admitted, saying it was a mistake.
34
34
But it was too late for the Travel Office staff: they were already tarred with the publicity of a criminal investigation. As Mrs. Clinton would say of charges against her beleaguered husband, a lie makes it halfway’ round the world before the truth can get its boots on.
Dale was ultimately brought up on embezzlement charges for depositing $68,000 of the media’s money in his personal account. He denied, and the government was unable to prove, that he had ever used the floating account for his personal use. The prosecution probed the Dale family’s finances in minute detail, but on November 16, 1995—two and a half years after his firing—Billy Dale was acquitted of all criminal charges.
THE TAX MAN COMETHWhen Kennedy threatened
to call in the IRS if the FBI didn’t gin up an investigation, he wasn’t kidding.
to call in the IRS if the FBI didn’t gin up an investigation, he wasn’t kidding.
Precisely eight days after Kennedy issued this threat, IRS officers showed up unannounced at the offices of UltrAir and began an unorthodox audit. If there had been any “kickbacks,” as Thomason had alleged, UltrAir would have been the airline paying them. The auditors asked to see UltrAir’s books concerning flights arranged through the White House Travel Office.
The UltrAir audit turned out to be highly unusual in many respects. Typically, an IRS audit is performed with respect to a company’s tax returns. UltrAir was formed in 1992; it had not yet had occasion to file a single tax return.
35
35
Two years later the IRS concluded that there were no problems with UltrAir.
The IRS did not stop at auditing UltrAir. Both the former head of UltrAir, Charles Caudle, and Billy Dale himself were personally audited. The IRS must have been sorry Caudle turned up on the White House enemies list: it turned out the IRS owed Caudle nearly $5,000.
36
36
In June Kennedy told two other members of the White House Counsel’s Office that he had spoken to the commissioner of the IRS, Margaret Milner Richardson, about Billy Dale and reported that she was “on top of it” and that IRS agents were “aware.”
37
Commissioner Richardson had been a friend of Mrs. Clinton’s since their days at Yale Law School; she had also been a Clinton campaign contributor and an aide on the Clinton transition team.
37
Commissioner Richardson had been a friend of Mrs. Clinton’s since their days at Yale Law School; she had also been a Clinton campaign contributor and an aide on the Clinton transition team.
Eventually, Billy Dale was personally audited by the IRS. In case this needs to be stated: White House lawyers are not supposed to have advance warning of even random IRS audits.
Coincidentally, Dale was first warned that he was going to be audited personally when being questioned by the IRS about the Travel Office accounts. He described this in testimony before the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee:
Well, I can tell you that, I don’t remember the date but somewhere along October-November of 1993, I got a summons from the IRS to appear in my attorney’s office and bring all documents pertaining to the Travel Office. I went and it was our understanding that they were going to question me about the excise tax and how the White House Travel Office had handled it. And as the meeting was drawing to a close, they had asked me a lot of personal questions, what kind of an automobile did I drive and things like that, and they looked at me and they said, “Don’t be surprised if you hear from Baltimore and they want to audit you.”
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) followed up Dale’s disturbing account by accusing politicians of “playing politics instead of shaping policy”—but she was attacking
the Republicans
. She went on to praise herself—“at the risk of sounding constructive”—by proposing that the committee address an imaginary problem: how to “depoliticize” the Travel Office.
the Republicans
. She went on to praise herself—“at the risk of sounding constructive”—by proposing that the committee address an imaginary problem: how to “depoliticize” the Travel Office.
The difficulty with this was the office had never been “politicized.” Dale had begun working at the White House in the Kennedy administration—playing Santa Claus on the telephone for little Caroline—and moved into White House travel operations during the Johnson administration. He had served seven presidents—three Democrats and four Republicans. The office had not become “politicized” until the Clinton White House purged the entire office because it needed “the slots,” accused Dale of embezzling funds, ginned up an FBI investigation and prosecution against him, arranged for a compliant IRS to audit this public servant, and then turned to reliable flacks like Representative Maloney to defend the White House from legitimate inquiry.
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S FAULTIn some respects, what was done
to the White House Travel Office employees is the worst of the Clinton scandals. There is no more pernicious abuse of power than using the police powers of the federal government for personal or political gain. The most damning charges against Nixon had been that he had attempted to use the office of the president to influence the FBI and the IRS. He got an FBI investigation delayed for two weeks, and he was completely ignored by the IRS.
to the White House Travel Office employees is the worst of the Clinton scandals. There is no more pernicious abuse of power than using the police powers of the federal government for personal or political gain. The most damning charges against Nixon had been that he had attempted to use the office of the president to influence the FBI and the IRS. He got an FBI investigation delayed for two weeks, and he was completely ignored by the IRS.
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