NLPC was an early participant in the Travelgate controversy. On July 20, 1993, NLPC filed a Complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging illegal contributions to the Clinton for President campaign by corporations controlled by the Clinton’s Hollywood pal Harry Thomason, who also owns an air charter brokerage.
NLPC alleged that the the firings were a payoff to Thomason, who sought
the travel office business for himself. Billy Dale, the former Travel
Office Director, recently sat down with NLPC President Peter Flaherty in
the Washington office of his attorney, Steve Tabackman.
Peter: When did you start your job in the Travel Office in the White
House?
Billy: October of 1961.
Peter: So you’ve served how many presidents?
Billy: Seven. Democrats and Republicans.
Peter: So in the travel office, these were not political jobs.
Billy: That’s right. There are two White House staffs. There is what we refer to as the operating units, what a lot of people would refer to as career employees. They stay from administration to administration. And then there’s the political staff that the president brings into to office with him. And when he leaves, it’s understood that they leave with him.
Peter: How many folks work at the travel office?
Billy: The staff consisted of myself and six others when the Clinton administration came it. When I started working in the travel office in 1961, it was the telegraph and travel office and it was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So the staff fluctuated. I became director in July of 1982.
Peter: And you arranged the media’s travel when they traveled with the president?
Billy: We arranged travel for the media traveling with the President and for 10 or 12 smaller government agencies that report to the White House and are located within the White House complex, like the National Security Council.
Peter: And you were fired when?
Billy: May 19, 1993.
Peter: What was the first you heard that changes might be coming within the travel office?
Billy: I think that we heard that changes were going to take place as early December of 1992, during the transition, because we had read something in a travel magazine that a travel agency in Little Rock that was handling the Clinton campaign was looking to come in and take over the Travel Office.
Peter: And then what happened?
Billy: Well, we went right along just like we had with any other administration.
And on Inauguration Day we started getting telephone calls for Catherine
Cornelius.
Peter: Oh really?
Billy: Yeah, as early as like 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon. And when we would respond that there’s nobody here by that name, they’d be surprised and say “It was my understanding that she was going to be running the travel office. She told us that we could contact her in the travel office.”
Peter: Did you understand at that time that she was the President's cousin?
Billy: No, no. I never knew that she was the president's cousin until after she started working in the travel office.
Peter: So at a certain point she came aboard.
Billy: Yes. And I don’t remember the exact date, but like the last part of March, the first part of April, David Watkins called me to his office and asked me if I would be willing to take Catherine aboard in the travel office and teach her the travel business.
Peter: And David Watkins was who?
Billy: David Watkins was my boss. He was an assistant to president, special assistant to the president for management. And, I mean, I had no real choice but to take her. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Watkins was fired in 1994 after using the Presidential helicopter to go play golf.)
Peter: Was there been any suggestion to you that you should steer business to the President’s Hollywood friend Harry Thomason, who owns an air charter brokerage?
Billy: The only indication that we had was a telephone call from Darnell Martens (Thomason’s partner). I didn’t know who Darnell Martens was. And he identified himself as being with a broker who was looking to get some of the press charter business.
Peter: Did he use Thomason’s name or anything?
Billy: No, no. He just identified his name to me and introduced
himself over the phone. And I couldn’t get rid of him. He was
very demanding. And I essentially, told him that I didn’t think that
I needed him. I now know from news reports that he went back to Harry
Thomason and told him that I wasn't very cooperative with him.
Peter: What was the first point you had any indication that you would
be accused of wrongdoing?
Billy: May 19th, the day we were fired, which was a Wednesday. As David Watkins had us in the conference room telling us that we were being terminated, Dee Dee Myers was briefing the press and telling them that we were being fired for mismanagement and financial irregularities.
Peter: At what point did you learn that the FBI had become involved?
Billy: For several months, the only thing that I knew what was what was being reported in the newspapers or on the television, CNN primarily. I got a telephone call from a member of the White House staff sometime in August. And he told me that the FBI had been into the White House credit union and subpoenaed all my credit union records. I said, “Fine. They can subpoena my records. I’ve got nothing in the credit union records that I want to hide from them. I’ll tell them what’s there.” And that’s when I knew they were going to go to my personal checking account, too.
Peter: What happened next?
Billy: I got a subpoena from the Internal Revenue Service in October 1993. And I was told that they wanted to talk to me because it had been reported that there had had not been any federal excise tax paid on the charters we had arranged, which turned out to be untrue. The interview ended up with them asking about my personal finances, about the vehicles I drove. The IRS agent said, “Mr. Dale, don’t be surprised if you hear from somebody from the Baltimore office and wanting to audit your tax returns.” And that happened.
Peter: Wow.
Billy: And then, after that, I think about the middle of February, 1994, the FBI contacted my attorney and told him that I was under investigation for embezzlement and/or conversion. And it just went on from there. In December of 1994, they finally indicted me for embezzling $68,000.
Peter: What was the basis for the charge?
Billy: The charge, the basis of it, was that from 1988 through the spring of 1991, I had cashed checks that had come in from telephone companies, refund checks.
Peter: Did you keep a log or some other record of these transactions?
Billy: I kept a log.
Peter: You had no blemishes on your personnel records prior to these allegations?
Billy: No.
Peter: What became of this log?
Billy: I don’t know what happened to it. When I went to retrieve it after I’d been fired, it wasn’t where I expected to find it. And I couldn’t find it any place else in the office.
Peter: All right. So after 18 months, you’re indicted for embezzlement. Then how long after the indictment did the trial take place?
Billy: I was indicted on the 7th of December 1994. And the trial started on October 26th, 1995.
Peter: What requirements were made of you during this period between the indictment and the actual trial?
Billy: Well, when I was indicted, I had to go to the FBI officers over in Southwest Washington to be fingerprinted and have a mug shot. I had to go to the cell block at D.C. police headquarters and do the same thing. I was released on my personal recognizance. And I had to report into the courts once a week, every week by telephone. And I was not free to leave more than 100 miles away from Washington without the court's permission.
Peter: Did you ever have to leave the area?
Billy: I did in the spring of 1995. My brother, who lives in Augusta, Georgia was diagnosed with leukemia. And the hospital down there wanted me to come down and give him blood. I had to get the court’s permission to go down there for a three-day trip.
Peter: Did you find this humiliating?
Billy: Absolutely, because I felt like a common criminal.
Peter: How did your wife hold up?
Billy: There were days that I didn’t think she was going to make it. It was very, very rough on her.
Peter: And what kind of strain did this place on the family?
Billy: I have three children, a son who is 35 years old, a daughter who is 32 and a daughter who is 30. It placed a tremendous strain on them because they were investigated, too. They went back and got every financial record that they could find. They went to my insurance company, to my automobile insurance company and got every record that they had for the last seven or eight years, the policies, the homeowners policies, credit card records, Sears, JC Penny’s, whoever I had a credit card with, they went and got it.
Peter: They looked at the financial records, of your adult children, who have no connection to any of this?
Billy: Right.
Peter: It sounds like they’re trying to make a case that you were living beyond your means.
Billy: That’s what their whole case was about.
Peter: What kind of things did they cite at the trial?
Billy: I had a house constructed on that lot at Lake Anna, Virginia in early 1988. And 100 percent of the cost of constructing that house was mortgaged. They had those records. They knew that. They went to Lake Anna. The interviewed people that live near me down there, that I have -- one gentleman that owned a dump truck that hauled a load of gravel and spread it over my driveway at $180. People who I’ve hired to do lawn work for me. And people who had poured a concrete sidewalk for me, and I had written checks to.
They tried to say that I used this money to furnish and remodel this house after it was built. I had a dock built. I built it myself with the help of my two brother-in- laws and my son. At trial we brought out the pictures showing that we drove the posts in the ground with a 16 pound sledge hammer ourselves. We worked on this for two weekends. And it took me five years to finish it by working on weekends, where if I’d been stealing money, I would have hired somebody to do it and got it done in two months or something like that.
Peter: What else?
Billy: I have a pool in the backyard of my regular home. I had
this pool put in in July of 1978. I got a home improvement loan from
the bank for $10,000. And it ran for 10 years. We haven’t used
the pool much since a six-year old boy climbed over the fence and drowned
in June of 1983.
Peter: The prosecution cited any number of small and routine expenditures,
but from what I understand they never made the case that any of this was
made possible through embezzlement.
Billy: That’s right.
Peter: But, nonetheless, they pursued the case.
Billy: They pursued the case, that’s for sure. My youngest daughter graduated from college in the spring of 1989. And she lived at home with me off and on until she got married in October of 1994, and paid rent. They didn't believe her. She went in for an interview with them in October of 1994 and they interrogated her for five and a half hours. They had her in tears.
Peter: What was the trial like?
Billy: Well, never having gone through that before, I don’t know exactly how to explain it to you, but it was a very, very trying time. I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to go through what we went through.
Peter: How long did it last?
Billy: Three weeks.
Peter: And you were acquitted. How long did it take the jury to reach that verdict?
Billy: Approximately two hours, two hours and ten minutes, something like that.
Peter: Which is pretty fast.
Billy: It was pretty fast, yeah. I think that was one of the more satisfying factors of the trial or during this whole thing, is how fast they came back with the verdict.
Peter: Now, how much are your legal bills?
Billy: Several hundred thousand dollars
Peter: You owe this money. What are you going to do?
Billy: I don’t know.
Peter: At the time you were fired, you perceived David Watkins to be directing these events?
Billy: Yes.
Peter: Do you believe other people in the White House higher than Watkins had some role in this?
Billy: Now I do, yes.
Peter: Has President Clinton apologized to you?
Billy: He apologized on the afternoon of the verdict. He was holding a news conference and he was asked a question about my acquittal. And I don’t remember the exact words, but he said that he wished me well.
EDITOR’S NOTE: After this interview, and after the President’s “apology,” the White House launched a new offensive of smear and innuendo against Dale. In January, Clinton lawyer Robert Bennett and Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler repeated false accusations against Dale. After more negative reaction, and Congressional hearings on the affair, the President’s spokesman said that some of his allies “had gone too far” in attacking Dale, and that the President would not oppose legislation that would have the government pay Dale's legal bills. A 1993 memo written by David Watkins, subpoenaed by Congress in 1994 but not turned over until January 1996, indicates that Hillary Rodham Clinton was the driving force behind the Travel Office firings. Watkins wrote, “We...knew that there would be hell to pay if...we failed to take swift and decisive action in conformity with the first lady’s wishes.”
EW