N.Y. Times: Clinton White House Did "Nothing Much' In Travelgate

NewsMax ^ | 11/24/02 | Limbacher

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

In the sleazy "Travelgate" scandal the Clinton White House did "nothing much, really" according to today's New York Times.

The claim was further proof that the Times has become unglued by the horror of the GOP's smashing victory in the November 5 elections. So frantic has the "newspaper of record" become that the Weekly Standard was moved to parody a Times front page as announcing "GOP Wins Senate; Nation Girds for Bush Judges, End of Civilization," a parody that came as close to the truth as humor can get.

Now someone named Adam Cohen, apparently a Times Op-Ed columnist, risked life and limb to attend a gathering of the Federalist Society where he discovered to his horror that the Society's conservative members harbor conservative ideas about the true functions of government.

In one paragraph, Cohen follows his newspaper's penchant for scrambling the facts, to wit: "Before one event, a graybeard in the audience tutored a wet-behind-the-ears Federalist on the horrors of Travelgate, in which the Clinton White House did - well, nothing much, really."

Really?

How about a little perjury, for starters? According to Special Counsel Robert Ray, his office found "overwhelming evidence" that Hillary Clinton played a role in the sordid firing of seven longtime employees in the White House travel office.

Despite her denials under oath to Congress and to his office, Ray said in his final report that Mrs. Clinton played a key role and provided input into the decision to fire the employees.

"Her statement to the contrary under oath to this office was factually false"; her sworn testimony was "factually inaccurate," Ray said.

Nothing much?

Cohen should talk to Billy Dale, the former head of the White House Travel office. The White House did a lot more than "nothing much" to Mr. Dale.

A report by the majority of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee charged the White House misused the FBI to manufacture false criminal charges against former travel director Billy Dale and his six colleagues, who later were quickly cleared or acquitted in court.

When the scheme unraveled, the report revealed, White House aides engaged in "a colossal damage-control effort" to obscure Bill and Hillary Clinton's roles in the firings, laying the blame on former aide David Watkins.

"President Clinton has engaged in an unprecedented misuse of the executive power, abuse of executive privilege and obstruction of numerous investigations into the Travel Office matter," Committee chairman William Clinger said in an opening statement.

Along with all six of his staff, Dale was summarily fired without notice and removed from the White House grounds. But, wrote Accuracy in Media chairman Reed Irvine in a July 10, 2000 NewsMax.com column that was just the beginning of Billy Dale's incredible ordeal.

"Billy Dale and his family went through hell thanks to the Clintons, Attorney General Janet Reno, the FBI and the IRS," Irvine wrote. "Hillary's greatest crime was not perjury, it was trying to send an innocent man to prison to justify having fired him and his staff without cause."

As Irvine reported, Clinton's Hollywood crony Harry Thomasson, sought to get the travel office business for a company in which he had an interest. "He spread stories that the career people running the travel office were crooks who had to be replaced. The replacements, of course, were to be people who would make sure that his company got their business, " one of whom was to be a young woman described as Bill Clinton's "cousin."

Hillary went to bat for Thomasson, pushing David Watkins, the assistant to the president for management and administration, to get the matter taken care of. When he didn't move fast enough to satisfy Hillary he got a phone call from her in which, he admitted later "she conveyed to me in clear terms her desire for swift and clear action to resolve the situation."

He then wrote a memo to Chief of Staff Mack McLarty in which he said "We both knew there would be hell to pay if ... we failed to take swift and decisive action in conformity with the First Lady's wishes." Two days later, the travel office staff was fired.

In an attempt to justify the unwarranted firings, the Clintons then dragged the FBI into the matter and ordered them to find evidence to support Thomasson's embezzlement charges. They couldn't and were reduced to seeking evidence that the Dales were living beyond their means. That was not true either, except that now their legal bills they faced, some $450,000, were more than they could afford.

"And that was $450,000 that I didn't have," Dale told Irvine. "And I could see my wife sitting across the room from me, and giving up our home and everything else that we had worked 38 years for." He said he told his lawyers "if they want me to go to jail, go back and tell them that I will go to jail for three months and I will take home confinement for three months, but I will not admit that I stole any money. " The feds refused the deal and indicted Dale.

When he finally came to trial the jury took exactly 20 minutes to find him not guilty. But that was not the end of Dale's ordeal at the hands of the Clintons. He was subjected to a three-year IRS audit, which also found nothing wrong.

"Now, look at what they did to Hillary," Dale told Irvine. "Perjury meant something if I perjured myself, but it doesn't mean anything for her. I just don't understand it."

Nothing much, Mr. Cohen?

[murdoog]

Travelgate was the first thing that tipped me off that the Clintons were unusually bad people.

[jws3sticks]

yup

[jws3sticks]

I forgot to add, I did add the WTC guy on the eastern look to the incoming B-2, which I thought was pretty cool.