Panel Votes to Cite 3 for Contempt in Travel Office Case

Just hours after President Clinton asserted executive privilege in refusing to turn over documents related to the 1993 firing of seven White House travel office workers, a congressional committee Thursday voted to cite three administration officials for contempt of Congress.

The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee voted along straight party lines, 27 to 19, to hold White House Counsel Jack Quinn and two former presidential aides in contempt for refusing to release documents subpoenaed in January.

Cited along with Quinn were David Watkins, former White House chief of administration, and Matthew Moore, a former lawyer in Watkins’ office.

It was not clear whether the privilege claim and the citations were the beginnings of a constitutional confrontation, or merely the posturing before a compromise.

Committee Chairman William F. Clinger Jr. (R-Pa.) said that he would not refer the contempt citations to the full House for a vote until next week, leaving open the possibility of a deal.

Quinn had written to Clinger earlier in the day to say that Clinton was invoking executive privilege “as a protective matter.”

Quinn argued that the documents sought by the panel were records of internal White House deliberations and shed no substantive light on the travel office matter. He also sent a letter from Atty. Gen. Janet Reno supporting the president’s claim of privilege.

Quinn repeated earlier offers to produce some of the material under certain conditions, but Clinger rejected the overture as a tactic to delay and “stonewall” the panel.

“The time for the White House to seek to avoid contempt has come and gone,” Clinger said. “The White House has neither complied with nor offered a legally rational basis for not complying with this committee’s subpoenas.

“It is troubling then that the president continues to attempt to contain a scandal that has no connection with national security or any vital domestic policy but at the bottom is a scandal about the character of this presidency,” Clinger told the committee in an opening statement.

Both sides offered legal rationales for their actions. The White House argued that internal deliberations and attorney working papers are protected by the doctrine of executive privilege, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

Clinger said that privilege is to be used only in extraordinary circumstances to protect national security or the confidentiality of executive branch decision-making.

He noted that executive privilege has been invoked only once in the 1990s, when then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney cited it in refusing to turn over internal Pentagon procurement papers.

The papers at issue are essentially notes from the White House counsel’s office records relating to preparation for congressional hearings on the travel office affair.

Clinton fired the seven longtime employees of the White House travel office, which chiefly handles travel arrangements for members of the media who cover presidential news, amid charges that they had mishandled or embezzled funds. But the only worker charged with a criminal misdeed was acquitted in a trial--and the White House later conceded that the firings were ill-advised.

Clinger and the White House have been at odds over the travel office matter for three years. The administration has provided 40,000 documents and 40 witnesses to Clinger’s committee, evidence--the White House says--of its sincere efforts at accommodation.

But the congressman insisted that the White House has resisted at every turn.

“They don’t really want the documents,” said Mark D. Fabiani, associate White House counsel. “The quickest and best way to do that is go to a civil court and ask a judge to rule they must be released. This is purely a manufactured dispute. We’re now into the political season and what we’re seeing is old-fashioned politics.”

Also Thursday, presidential assistant Patsy Thomasson was recalled as a witness by the Senate Whitewater Committee for questioning about the travel office case, over repeated objections from ranking Democratic member Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland that the inquiry is outside the scope of the panel’s mandate.

Thomasson told skeptical Republicans she could not recall hearing that Mrs. Clinton was pushing for a shakeup in the travel office shortly before the firings.

Committee Chief Counsel Michael Chertoff reminded her she had attended meetings with Watkins, her boss, at which he said the first lady’s interests were discussed.

“I don’t specifically recall discussions with reference to the first lady,” Thomasson said. She also denied knowing that Catherine Cornelius, a distant cousin of Clinton, had been selected to take over some travel office duties before the regular employees were fired.