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“WHITE HOUSE TRAVEL OFFICE SCANDAL” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H323-H324 on Jan. 5, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
WHITE HOUSE TRAVEL OFFICE SCANDAL
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, the first scandal of the Clinton administration was brought on in May of 1993 by the precipitous firing of Billy Dale and six other long-time employees of the White House travel office.
Having worked in the White House for 7 years, I was fully aware of the personal tragedy this dismissal represented. Billy Dale and the career civil servants that were sacked by the new White House regime were hard-working professionals who labored for Republicans and Democrats, never taking sides in politics, but only concerned about making the White House run as efficiently as possible.
But they were in the way. A relative of the President needed a job, and who cares about if the rules get bent or if some little guy has to be stepped upon? Furthermore, one of the President's big contributors owned a travel agency and wanted the business.
Bill Dale and those faithful Federal employees were not just fired. They were ambushed, assaulted, beaten up and left bleeding in the alley. They came to work one day and were simply told after decades of service to get out.
This callous and probably illegal termination of loyal employees immediately created a stir. After it was learned that the President's relative and a campaign contributor would be the beneficiaries of this act, it created an uproar. That only made things worse. Dale had to be personally attacked then to protect the administration from criticism.
A vulnerability was found and apparently over the many years and decades of Dale's service, he had become complacent about keeping the formal records of petty cash and tips in the office that he oversaw.
To put this in perspective, Hazel O'Leary spends hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars gallivanting all over the planet, from plush hotel to plush hotel, but it is the little guy, Billy Dale, that gets investigated.
In as shameful an act and political a prosecution as I have ever seen, he was charged with criminal violations, embezzlement. This was, as is clear now, a blatant, ugly assault on a public employee by a power elite trying to protect themselves.
The FBI and the prosecutors went along. Why? Well, it not only reflects viciousness and callousness, but this also reflects an unprofessional and questionable use of law enforcement. So why did they go along?
Well, when the situation played itself out, Dale not only lost his job, but it cost his life savings to defend himself. He lost everything. Those involved with this travesty, this injustice, should be ashamed. It took a jury here in Washington, DC, all of 2 hours to determine that Dale was innocent of all the charges brought against him. The President did not even have the decency to apologize for what he did to Dale.
Whose mean-spirited idea, whose stupid idea was this in the first place?
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Why did the FBI and the Department of Justice and the White House staff go along with it?
Well, these are good questions. Early on, fingers pointed to the First Lady, but the charge was denied over and over and over again. Well, at last, evidence is beginning to surface. A memo written at the time by White House chief administrator David Watkins says and describes First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton as being the driving force behind this heinous attack against Billy Dale. No one was willing to stand up against her.
The shenanigans of the Clinton White House are beginning to make the court of MacBeth look tame in comparison. This certainly makes Nancy Reagan's coveting of dresses and dishes a quaint memory of tainted innocence.
The First Lady and the President are responsible for their actions. The American people deserve the facts, and the press, in this former reporter's opinion, has not been informing the American people as to the nature of those who hold power.
Well, now it is going to become clear to the American people they cannot cover it up any more, as the front page headline of the New York Post says, ``Hillary Did It.'' Well, whether it is Whitewater or the Vincent Foster suicide or the scandalous coverup of illegal activities, of the illegal activities of the health care task force or this Travelgate affair, America needs to get to the bottom of these matters. We need to know the facts so that we can know who is governing this country and what they stand for.
If the little guy who keeps this Government going is stepped upon and abused like this, America will not be the same country. We must stand up for America and our ideals.
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