Travelgate Scandal
The Clintons's Attempt at Patronage
Civil service reforms in the 19th century virtually eliminated White House political patronage for profit. During Bill Clinton’s 1992 White House transition, Hillary tried to bring it back.
One of the intended patronage beneficiaries, who was not a government employee but a longtime Clinton confidante, was given a personal office in the East Wing and had unrestricted access throughout the White House. Another potential beneficiary was Bill’s 25 year-old cousin.
“To the victor go the spoils” is a timeworn phrase first known to have been said by a US senator in 1832. It was a reference to the political patronage that benefits the winner of an election. To Hillary Clinton, it was an ironclad policy.
After the 1992 presidential election, but before Bill Clinton was sworn in as the 42nd president, Clinton’s political supporters were exploring ways to cash in. One target was the White House Travel and Telegraph Office, commonly known as the White House Travel Office.
It was the responsibility of the White House Travel Office to schedule travel for the White House press corps that accompanied the president when traveling. The president and official members of his party are transported by the US Air Force 89th Airlift Wing located at Joint Base Andrews in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Included in the 89th Airlift Wing is Air Force One.
The White House Travel Office contracts with commercial carriers to transport members of the White House press corps and then charges each traveling news organization a prorated amount of the cost. It is generally believed the White House began arranging travel for the press as early as the presidential administration of Andrew Johnson, who served from 1865 to 1869.
On May 19, 1993, White House administrative chief David Watkins assembled five of the seven members of the White House Travel Office and told them they were fired effective June 5. He claimed poor management as the reason for their dismissal. As assistant to the president for management and administration, it was Watkins’s responsibility to supervise the Travel Office.
The seven Travel Office employees had been working in the office between nine and thirty-two years. The director and deputy director, Billy Dale and Gary Wright, respectively, had been working in the office since 1961. The two employees who were not at the Watkins meeting were traveling abroad, one on an advance trip to Japan and the other on vacation in Ireland, when they heard press reports they had been fired and were accused of possible criminal wrongdoing.
Catherine Cornelius assisted the Clinton campaign with travel during the 1992 race. In December 1992, a month before Clinton was inaugurated, Cornelius sent a memo to Watkins indicating her desire to be named the co-director of the Travel Office. The twenty-five-year-old Cornelius was a relative of Bill Clinton. In all, Cornelius sent three memos to Watkins, replete with “significant errors” and “inaccurate” information, recommending changes to the Travel Office, including her appointment to head it.
Two others behind the push to fire the Travel Office employees were Harry Thomason and Darnell Martens, who were longtime Clinton friends (referred to as FOB or ‘friends of Bill’). Thomason was a Hollywood filmmaker who produced the campaign film A Man from Hope, which promoted Clinton’s candidacy. He also produced events that were part of the Clinton inauguration. Thomason and Martens were partners with Dan Richland in an aviation consulting firm named Thomason, Richland & Martens, Inc. (TRM). It was their plan to have TRM take over White House Travel Office functions.
In its investigation, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that Cornelius, Thomason, and Martens “had potential personal or business interests in the Travel Office.” The GAO was also troubled by Thomason and Martens’s “unrestricted access to the White House complex and their participation in discussions and activities leading up to the removal of the [Travel Office] employees.” Thomason was even given an office in the East Wing. The GAO’s concern arose over an obvious conflict of interest.
Thomason and Martens were not full-time government employees, nor were they special government employees. A special government employee is someone temporarily employed by the White House for no more than 130 days during any one-year period. Government employees and special government employees are bound by conflict-of-interest safeguards. In spite of having unrestricted access to the White House, the unpaid “volunteer” status was a loophole that meant neither Thomason nor Martens were required by rule or regulation to abide by conflict-of-interest restrictions.
Watkins admitted to GAO investigators that it was Thomason who had told him there was possible wrongdoing in the Travel Office. Reportedly, Martens told Thomason he had “heard a rumor” that there was “corruption” in the office, but no details were offered. According to the independent counsel’s investigation, Thomason told more than one person there was a mysterious Georgetown bank used by the Travel Office, and that Travel Office employees were soliciting kickbacks.
No investigation ever substantiated Thomason’s claims. One of the chief complaints Thomason made to Watkins about the Travel Office was that it had no intention of passing business to Thomason’s firm, TRM. Dale’s position was that the office was already dealing directly with the airlines. Adding a middleman would only raise costs.
TRM was far from a heavyweight in the airline consulting business. Aside from the Clinton campaign, TRM had had only two other clients since its start-up in 1991. Additionally, Martens was the TRM president and its sole employee.
Long before any concrete steps were taken to fire the Travel Office employees, Martens and Thomason were scheming on what was to occur next. The Travel Office was not the endgame. The real goal, according to a January 29, 1993, confidential memo from Martens to Thomason, was to have TRM appointed to oversee the federal government’s entire fleet of non-military aircraft.
In the memo, Martens discussed “Washington opportunities.” He proposed TRM “review all non-military government aircraft to determine financial and operational appropriateness.” To accomplish this, the pair needed first to prove TRM’s bona fides as accomplished airline consultants and then be appointed by presidential executive order—hence, the takeover of the White House Travel Office.
On May 12th, Cornelius, Thomason, Martens, and Watkins met to discuss the Travel Office. Afterwards, Thomason met with First Lady Hillary Clinton. The First Lady then instructed Watkins to get “our people” into the Travel Office. In a memo he sent to White House Chief of Staff Thomas McLarty, Watkins warned “there would be hell to pay” if they didn’t replace the Travel Office employees “in conformity with the First Lady’s wishes.”
On May 17, Travel Officer Director Billy Dale, unaware of the scheming that was underway, told Watkins he wanted to retire. Watkins refused to accept the request. Two days later, Watkins fired Dale and the others.
On May 18, Watkins received a report from audit firm KPMG regarding Travel Office operations. At the request of White House officials, KPMG began an audit just three business days before the firings. KPMG found the office had “significant financial management weaknesses…[and] poor accounting systems.” In its later review, the GAO found that, at least since the 1980s, and possibly earlier, “White House officials provided little guidance or oversight to Travel Office employees.” It was well into spring 1993 before Dale learned to whom to report in the Clinton administration. Watkins later told GAO investigators that he did not provide any guidance to the Travel Office because he had higher priorities.
The day of the firings, the White House requested World Wide Travel Service, Inc., and Air Advantage to immediately handle travel responsibilities. Both companies had connections to the Clintons, as they had provided air travel services to the Clinton campaign. The two companies were notified days in advance of the anticipated firings—in one case, before KPMG even commenced its audit.
World Wide Travel Service quit two days after taking over as the scandal began dominating headlines. Air Advantage came under criticism when it pocketed a commission. Both World Wide Travel and Air Advantage were quickly replaced with American Express Travel, which was already an approved government contractor.
Six months earlier, World Wide Travel Service was confident it would get White House travel business under Clinton. World Wide President Betta Carney told Arkansas press outlets after Clinton was elected that she expected her firm to take over White House travel business. In December 1992, she wrote the Clinton transition team expressing a desire to provide travel services to the White House. Betta Carney was a Clinton campaign donor.
The firing of the Travel Office employees was a foregone conclusion. The White House press office prepared talking points on May 13th announcing the firings. This was one day before KPMG began its audit.
The KPMG audit was the official reason the Clinton White House gave for firing the employees. The same day, according to the independent counsel’s investigation that was conducted later, the First Lady “was on the warpath” because “our people weren’t there to serve the President.”
Looking back, another indicator the seven employees might soon be canned occurred when a long-stemmed rose, accompanied by a card from the president and First Lady, was delivered to each White House employee marking Clinton’s one hundredth day in office. The Travel Office employees weren’t among the recipients.
As the build-up continued toward the eventual firings, White House officials were passing around fantastical stories of criminal activity. Included among these, Travel Office employees apparently owned “vacation home[s],” “racehorses,” “a home in Switzerland,” and were “soliciting kickbacks,” “skimming funds,” “crooks,” reimbursed for personal travel, and played golf every Wednesday. White House officials had demonized the seven Travel Office employees.
On May 19, White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers announced the firing of the Travel Office employees, then added that the FBI was conducting a criminal investigation. This revelation was a shock to the fired employees because no one at the White House had suggested they were suspected of criminal activity. Myers’s announcement deeply annoyed the FBI, since the agency had not even begun a preliminary investigation.
After several days of widespread criticism over the firings, which CNN pundits dubbed “Travelgate,” the Clinton administration backtracked and informed five of the Travel Office employees that they were not fired. Instead, they were placed on administrative leave while the White House lined up jobs elsewhere in the federal government. The director and deputy director had already announced their retirements. Six weeks after the firings, the White House issued a surprisingly critical report of how the Clinton administration bungled the matter.
The report admitted the abrupt firings were “unnecessary and insensitive” and the employees should have been given specific reasons for their dismissal. Four White House officials were named for having acted improperly, but were merely given letters of reprimand.
On July 20, White House Deputy General Counsel Vince Foster committed suicide. Foster was consumed with depression and anxiety over his work in the Clinton transition team and, later, the White House.[1] He was virtually alone when he cautioned a White House hell-bent on firing the workers to instead take a more professional and balanced approach. It is widely believed that two major events contributed to the decision to kill himself: the Travelgate scandal and Hillary’s humiliation of him only days earlier, in the presence of several others, by calling him “a little hick-town lawyer who was obviously not ready for the big time.”[2]
The Department of Justice announced the indictment of former Travel Office Director Billy Dale on December 7, 1994. He faced charges of embezzlement. After a thirteen-day trial, jurors quickly rendered a not guilty verdict on November 16, 1995.
During the course of his investigation, the independent counsel confirmed that Hillary Clinton had at least eleven conversations with various individuals regarding the White House Travel Office. This directly contradicted the testimony she gave the Government Accountability Office, Congress, and the independent counsel, stating that she played no role in the firings. However, the independent counsel “concluded that the evidence was insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that…Mrs. Clinton committed perjury or obstruction of justice.”
Further, the independent counsel concluded Clinton was not truthful when she testified before the grand jury that she did not have a role in the firing of the White House Travel Office employees. Yet, the counsel wrote, “The available admissible evidence is insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mrs. Clinton knowingly made a false statement in her sworn denial of such a role or input.”
In her post-White House memoir, Hillary Clinton falsely wrote, “Before we moved into the White House, neither Bill nor I nor our immediate staff had known there was a White House Travel Office.” [3]
Contrary to Hillary’s assertions, the Clinton staff was scheming on replacing the director with Bill’s cousin several weeks before Bill Clinton’s inauguration as the 42nd president.
Mark Hyman is a 35-year military veteran and an Emmy award-winning investigative journalist. Follow him on Twitter, Gettr, Parler, and Mastodon.world at @markhyman, and on Truth Social at @markhyman81.
His books Washington Babylon: From George Washington to Donald Trump, Scandals That Rocked the Nation and Pardongate: How Bill and Hillary Clinton and their Brothers Profited from Pardons are on sale now (here and here).
[1] David Von Drehle & Howard Schneider, “Foster’s Death a Suicide: Report Ascribes Fatality to Personal Collapse,” Washington Post, July 1, 1994.
[2] Ronald Kessler, The Secrets of the FBI, (New York: Crown Publishers, 2011), 108-109.
[3] Hillary Clinton, Living History, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 172.
Kirk: Great to hear from you. Thanks for the kind words on the column. Hope all is well with you.
Great job, once again, Mark. This highlights why the nation dodged a bullet when it came to electing Hillary Clinton as President. The corruption that seems to follow the Clinton family will forever tarnish their reputation. With this article, however, I highly recommend you consider taking necessary personal security precautions including the procurement of a bullet-proof vest. One can never be too cautious when exposing the graft and malfeasance of the Clinton crime syndicate.