Common Cause Chief Urges Bush to Act on Travel Abuses

A government ethics watchdog group asked President Bush Friday to propose tougher rules to curb travel abuses by Chief of Staff John H. Sununu and other officials.

Common Cause, a nonprofit organization, wrote Bush that action should be taken to stop officials like Sununu and Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher from traveling on corporate jets on government or personal business.

Mosbacher has been reported to have flown on corporate jets owned by businesses that could benefit from Commerce Department foreign trade policy decisions.

In a letter to Bush, Common Cause President Fred Wertheimer urged him to propose new legislation to end the practice of government officials or members of Congress using corporate or private jets for travel while in office.

Sununu has come under fire for using military planes to go to the dentist and on ski trips, for taking a White House limousine to New York for an auction of rare stamps and corporate jets to Republican fund-raising affairs.

After publicity about the trips, which Bush said gave the appearance of impropriety, Sununu was ordered to get prior approval for his travel.

Bush’s right-hand man also offered to reimburse the government for military planes that had been used for non-official matters.

But the Common Cause president said that after-the-fact reimbursement does not correct violations.

“To accept that concept would establish a dangerous precedent for government officials in matters involving ethics violations,” Wertheimer said.

He said private citizens who avoid taxes cannot eliminate notions of wrongdoing by making reimbursements “after they have been found out.”

“Government officials should not be treated differently,” he wrote.

On Thursday, Sununu, of Lebanese ancestry, called major Jewish organizations to deny he was blaming Jews for his current travel problems as had been suggested in some reports.