Officials Deny Hollywood Tie to Travel Firings : Ethics: White House says mogul Harry Thomason’s was only one of several complaints. Ex-head of office says he was holding down costs.

The White House on Thursday denied any connection between its decision to fire its entire travel staff and complaints from presidential friend and Hollywood mogul Harry Thomason that air charter officials he knows were being denied a chance to bid on government business.

White House Communications Director George Stephanopoulos acknowledged that Thomason had relayed to White House officials complaints he received from the charter firms, in which he said he had no personal financial interest. Thomason did not return a call placed to his Los Angeles office Thursday.

But Stephanopoulos said Thomason’s tip was only one of several the White House had received alleging irregularities in the travel operation. He insisted that the summary dismissal of seven longtime White House travel aides was based solely on the results of an audit by an outside firm, which found shoddy management practices and inadequate or nonexistent documentation for income and expenditures.

The FBI will conduct an investigation of the office to determine whether any criminal conduct was involved.

Stephanopoulos on Thursday sought to soften the impression the White House had left on Wednesday that it had found substantial overbilling for charters and had documented widespread financial abuse in the travel office.

“The office was not being run in a professional manner and the money was not being handled in a professional manner,” Stephanopoulos said.

The head of the travel office, Billy Dale, denied any wrongdoing Thursday in an interview with the Associated Press.

“I have not stolen anybody’s money. The guys in my office have not stolen anybody’s money,” said Dale, who has worked at the White House for more than 31 years. Holding down costs, he said, “was one of my main concerns.”

For the time being, White House press travel will be coordinated by Catherine Cornelius, 25, a cousin of President Clinton. Flights and hotels will be booked through World Wide Travel, the Little Rock, Ark., agency that handled the Clinton campaign last year.

Stephanopoulos said that World Wide was assigned the travel contract without bidding but that a permanent agency would be selected through competitive bidding.

That firm has ties to David Watkins, director of the White House Office of Administration and Management, who oversaw the investigation of the travel office and made the decision to fire its employees. World Wide Travel was a client of his when he worked in advertising in Little Rock before joining the Clinton campaign staff in late 1991.

The flap over the terminations dominated the daily White House briefing for a second day, due largely to the fact that many White House reporters have longstanding relationships with the travel staff members who arrange their follow-along travel.

Some reporters grumbled about a lack of due process for the fired aides and worried aloud that the efficient handling of their travel arrangements would diminish under the temporary team hastily brought aboard to take over.

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story.