White House Refuses to Release Travel Office Papers to Congress

WASHINGTON — The White House has declined to immediately turn over to Congress more than 900 pages of documents concerning its troubled travel office, saying they are covered by executive privilege.

But presidential lawyers, in a letter released Thursday, left open the possibility that Republican congressional investigators might be allowed to see some of the documents in the future.

The White House’s position drew a sharp response from Rep. William F. Clinger Jr. (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.

Clinger said he was “extremely disappointed with the exhaustive amount of documents that are being withheld,” calling the decision contrary to President Clinton’s pledge to cooperate with his committee’s investigation.

“The extent of documents being withheld will seriously impair the ability of this committee to conduct a full and complete investigation of the matter,” Clinger wrote White House Counsel Abner J. Mikva on Thursday.

One of Mikva’s assistants, Mark Fabiani, played down the dispute, saying an agreement would likely be reached.

“We haven’t exercised the privilege. We have identified documents that are subject to it,” Fabiani said.

Clinger’s committee requested the documents as part of its investigation into the travel office, whose former director, Billy Dale, has been charged with embezzlement. Dale and six other longtime travel office employees were fired by the Clinton Administration in 1993 after an audit found what the Administration says was sloppy bookkeeping.

But the incident turned embarrassing for the Administration after it was learned that the initial complaints about the office came from Catherine A. Cornelius, a 25-year-old distant cousin of the President.

Cornelius worked at the office and wanted to run it.

The White House acknowledged it should not have dismissed most of the workers, and reinstated them to different government jobs. An internal review also concluded the White House had wrongly called in the FBI to announce an investigation that would justify the firings.