[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H94]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               TRAVELGATE

  (Mr. CHABOT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, for 2 long years, Mr. Speaker, a career 
public servant has been targeted, smeared, and ultimately prosecuted, 
all the news suggested, as part of a political coverup designed to 
justify the Travelgate firings and the transfer of White House business 
to political cronies. Thank God for the jury system which acquitted 
Billy Dale in just 2 hours. But chilling facts continue to emerge.
  Today the AP reports a newly released memo in which a high 
administration official explained the origins of this Orwellian case by 
saying, and I quote, ``We knew that there would be hell to pay if we 
failed to take swift and decisive action in conformity with the First 
Lady's wishes.'' That is shocking, and I will tell my colleagues, 
regardless of how powerful the person who ordered it, no matter how 
high in the Clinton administration, if Federal law enforcement agencies 
were turned against a career public servant as part of a political 
coverup, there ought to be, and I quote, ``hell to pay'' on the part of 
all those responsible.

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