The White House travel office controversy, sometimes referred to as Travelgate, was the first major ethics controversy of the Clinton administration. It began in May 1993, when seven employees of the White House Travel Office were fired. This action was unusual because executive-branch employees typically remain in their posts for many years (even though they can be terminated by, and serve at the pleasure of, the President).
The White House stated the firings were done because financial improprieties in the Travel Office operation during previous administrations had been revealed by an FBI investigation. Critics contended the firings were done to allow friends and campaign donors of President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton to take over the travel business and that the involvement of the FBI was unwarranted. Heavy media attention forced the White House to reinstate most of the employees in other jobs and remove the Clinton associates from the travel role.
Further investigations by the FBI and the Department of Justice, the White House itself, the General Accounting Office, the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, and the Whitewater Independent Counsel all took place over the subsequent years. Travel Office Director Billy Dale was charged with embezzlement but found not guilty in 1995. In 1998, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr exonerated Bill Clinton of any involvement in the matter.
Hillary Clinton gradually came under scrutiny for allegedly having played a central role in the firings and making false statements about her involvement therein. In 2000, Independent Counsel Robert Ray issued his final report on Travelgate. He sought no charges against her, saying that while some of Clinton's statements were factually false, there was insufficient evidence that these statements were either knowingly false or that she understood that her statements led to the firings.
The White House Travel Office
right|thumb|upright|The White House Travel Office was responsible for getting the [[White House press corps into place, including landing before Air Force One in order to get photo opportunities such as this one.]]
The White House Travel Office, known officially as either the White House Travel and Telegraph Office or the White House Telegraph and Travel Office, By the time of the start of the Clinton administration, it was quartered in the Old Executive Office Building, and had seven employees with a yearly budget of $7 million. however, in practice, the staffers were career employees who in some cases had worked in the Travel Office since the 1960s and 1970s, through both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Travel Office Director Billy Ray Dale had held that position since 1982, and the plush accommodations it afforded them and favors it did for them. (Congress would later discover that in October 1988, a whistleblower within the Travel Office had alleged financial improprieties; the Reagan White House counsel looked into the claim but took no action.)
thumb|left|upright|Starting in May 1993, Travelgate was the first major ethics controversy of the [[Clinton administration, with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's actions coming under increasing scrutiny.]]
Republicans and other critics saw the events differently. They alleged that friends of President Bill Clinton, including his third cousin Martens wanted the White House to award TRM a $500,000 contract for an aircraft audit,
Attention initially focused on the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), since on May 12, 1993, a week before the firings, associate White House counsel William Kennedy had requested that the FBI look into possible improprieties in the Travel Office operation. FBI agents went there and, although initially reluctant, KPMG was unable to do an actual audit, because there were so few records in the Travel Office that could be audited and because the office did not use the double-entry bookkeeping system that audits are based upon. When the review came back with its reports of irregularities, Watkins went ahead with the terminations on May 19. and an embarrassment for the new administration. The effect was intensified by cable television news and the advent of the 24-hour news cycle. (Later, after a competitive bid, American Express received the permanent role to book press charters. Co-written by Chief of Staff McLarty, it criticized five White House officials, included McLarty himself, Watkins, Kennedy, Cornelius, and another, for dismissing the Travel Office members improperly, for appearing to pressure the FBI into its involvement, and for allowing friends of the Clintons to become involved in a matter with which they had a financial stake. Dale and his assistant director retired. (In the last part, Foster may have been referring to lax customs treatment by the Travel Office of goods brought back from foreign trips by reporters. she denied having had a role in the firings, but was unable to recall many specifics of conversations with Foster and Watkins. and sought subpoenas to compel witnesses to appear.
Private investigations
Not all investigations were by governmental bodies. The magazine The American Spectator, which had a well-established animus towards the First Couple, focused on the Travelgate story as one of many Clinton-related matters it thought scandalous, describing it as "a story about influence-peddling and sleazy deal-making... in the Clinton White House". Spectator publisher R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. would claim that the magazine's early Travelgate stories provided useful material to the congressional investigations. In general, Clinton administration controversies such as Travelgate allowed opinion magazines and political debate television shows to attract subscribers and viewers. during the period between 1988 and 1991. Dale's attorneys conceded that funds had been co-mingled, but stated that Dale had not stolen anything but rather used the monies for the substantial tips and off-the-book payments that the job required, especially in foreign countries, and that anything left over was used as a discount against future trips. prominent journalists such as ABC News' Sam Donaldson and The Los Angeles Times Jack Nelson testified as character witnesses on Dale's behalf. The jury acquitted Dale of both charges on November 16, 1995, "Foster regularly informed me that the First Lady was concerned and desired action. The action desired was the firing of the Travel Office staff." Written in fall 1993, apparently intended for McLarty, the Watkins memo also said "we both know that there would be hell to pay" if "we failed to take swift and decisive action in conformity with the First Lady's wishes." followed by White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry saying that "the President, if he were not the President, would have delivered a more forceful response to that—on the bridge of Mr. Safire's nose."
As a result of the discovery of the Watkins memo, and based upon a suggestion from the Office of Independent Counsel, on March 20, 1996, Attorney General Janet Reno requested that Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr expand his inquiry to specifically include the travel office affair, in particular allegations that White House employees had lied about Hillary Clinton's role in the firings,
The Congressional investigation continued; on March 21, 1996, Hillary Clinton submitted a deposition under oath to the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, again acknowledging concern about irregularities in the Travel Office but denying a direct role in the firings and expressing a lack of recollection to a number of questions. House committee chair Clinger threatened a contempt of Congress resolution against the president, and the White House partially backed down on May 30, surrendering 1,000 of the 3,000 documents the committee asked for.
Meanwhile, the seven dismissed employees were back in the picture. In March 1996 the House voted 350–43 to reimburse them for all of their legal expenses; in September 1996, Democratic Senator Harry Reid led an unsuccessful attempt to block this measure. In May 1996, the seven filed a $35 million lawsuit against Harry Thomason and Darnell Martens, alleging unlawful interference with their employment and emotional distress.
On June 5, 1996, Clinger announced that the committee's investigations had discovered that the White House had requested access to Billy Dale's FBI background check report seven months after the terminations, in what Clinger said was an improper effort to justify the firings. It was rapidly discovered that the White House had additionally gotten improper access to hundreds of other FBI background reports, many on former White House employees in Republican administrations; thus was born the Filegate controversy.
The Senator Al D'Amato-chaired Senate Special Whitewater Committee, which had begun the previous year, issued its findings in a majority report on June 18, 1996; it did not investigate Travelgate directly, but did say that "[Hillary] Clinton, upon learning of [Vince] Foster's death, at least realized its connection to [the] Travelgate scandal, and perhaps to the Whitewater matter, and dispatched her trusted lieutenants to contain any potential embarrassment or political damage." Minority Democratic members of the Committee derided these findings as "a legislative travesty," "a witch hunt," and "a political game." Democratic members of the Committee walked out in protest over the report, with ranking member Henry Waxman calling it "an embarrassment to you [Chairman Clinger], this committee and this Congress" and "a crassly partisan smear campaign against President Clinton, Mrs. Clinton and this administration." In September 1998 Independent Counsel Starr released the famous Starr Report, concerning offenses that may have been committed by President Clinton as part of the Lewinsky scandal. It did not mention the travel office matter. (Starr also chose this occasion to clear President Clinton in the Filegate matter, and to say he had not committed impeachable wrongdoing in the Whitewater matter; Democrats on the committee immediately criticized Starr for withholding all these findings until after the 1998 Congressional elections.)
Starr explicitly did not exonerate Hillary Clinton, however; her case remained unsettled. More time passed. By 2000, she was a candidate for United States Senator from New York, and Starr had been replaced as Independent Counsel by prosecutor Robert Ray, who once worked for Rudy Giuliani, Clinton's then-opponent in the Senate race. Regardless, Ray vowed his investigation would have "no untoward effect on the political process."
On June 23, 2000, the suspense ended when Ray submitted the final Independent Counsel report on the travel office affair under seal to the judicial panel in charge of the investigation and publicly announced that he would seek no criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. Ray said that she had, contrary to her statements, "ultimately influenced" the decision to fire the employees. was unsealed and made public on October 18, 2000, three weeks before the Senatorial election. It confirmed that neither Hillary Clinton nor David Watkins would be indicted. Ray cited eight separate conversations between the First Lady and senior staff and concluded: "Mrs. Clinton’s input into the process was significant, if not the significant factor influencing the pace of events in the Travel Office firings and the ultimate decision to fire the employees." Moreover, Ray determined Hillary Clinton had given "factually false" testimony when questioned by the GAO, the Independent Counsel, and Congress
On the other hand, Bill Powers, chair of the New York Republican State Committee, said the report "once again makes us question" the believability of Clinton, and Congressman Rick Lazio, her Republican opponent in the Senate election, said "We believe that character counts in public service." New York Times columnist Safire updated his description of Hillary Clinton to "habitual prevaricator", saying "the evidence that she has been lying all along is damning" and comparing her dark side to that of Richard Nixon, in whose White House he had once worked.
Legacy
In the legal aftermath, Swidler & Berlin v. United States became an important Supreme Court decision. The length, expense, and results of the Travelgate and the other investigations grouped under the Whitewater umbrella turned much of the public against the Independent Counsel mechanism. As such, the Independent Counsel law expired in 1999, with critics saying it cost too much with too few results; even Kenneth Starr favored the law's demise.
Opinions would differ over the legacy of the affair. Some agreed with Safire, who had said that Hillary Clinton was "a vindictive power player who used the FBI to ruin the lives of people standing in the way of juicy patronage." while in her 2003 autobiography Hillary Clinton gave short shrift to the matter, never mentioning Billy Dale by name and saying that Travelgate'... was perhaps worthy of a two- or three-week life span; instead, in a partisan political climate, it became the first manifestation of an obsession for investigation that persisted into the next millennium." Many in the Clinton inner circle would always believe that political motivations had been behind the investigation, including an attempt to derail Hillary Clinton's role in the 1993 health care reform plan.