[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 3 (Friday, January 5, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H323-H324]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   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?

                              {time}  2200

  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 

[[Page H324]]
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.

                          ____________________