
              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 6  Num. 56
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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TRAVELGATE
==========
 
You may have noticed brief blurbs in the mass media recently 
about some fellow named Billy R. Dale who was found "not guilty" 
of embezzling funds in connection with his duties as director of 
the White House travel office. If you're like most people in this 
country, you probably don't know the whole story. Here is how I 
am able to piece it together from articles in the Washington 
Times National Weekly Edition, November 20-26, 1995.
 
Mr. Dale, after a stint in the Air Force, joined the White House 
travel office as a clerk in 1961. A frugal man, he put aside $50 
a month into U.S. savings bonds while at first earning a salary 
of just $4,000 per year. Through hard work, Mr. Dale rose through 
the ranks until he became director. He worked in the travel 
office for 31 years and served as director for 11 of those years.
 
The Washington Times asserts that the embezzlment charges against 
Dale "grew out of the Clinton administration's effort to have the 
president's associates manage the lucrative operation." Mr. 
Dale's attorney, Steven C. Tabackman agrees: "The case began as 
an effort to justify a misguided effort by the White House to 
remove long-term and highly respected employees and replace them 
with campaign contributors," he is quoted as saying.
 
So it looks like the deal was to sic the Justice Department on 
this man with trumped up charges of embezzlement, fire him, and 
put in "Friends of Bill" in his place. Mr. Dale and his staff had 
been fired in May of 1993 and an "internal White House 
investigation later showed that Hollywood producer Harry 
Thomason, the president's distant cousin Catherine Cornelius and 
several other aides improperly schemed to take over the office 
for personal gain," notes the Times.
 
Of the six travel office personnel given the axe by the Clinton 
White House, Dale was the only one to face prosecution. Two years 
later and after suffering significant legal expense he and his 
family wept as the verdict was read by the jury foreman: "not 
guilty". Dale and his family are now trying to raise funds to pay 
their legal expenses. Presumably he is now, at an advanced age, 
trying to find work. "They ruined Billy," said a friend, Connie 
Gerrard.
 
President Bill Clinton, commenting on all this, said, "I'm very 
sorry about what Mr. Dale went through, and I wish him well. And 
I hope that now he'll be able to get on with his life and -- and 
just put this behind him."
 
In a related story in the Washington Times, the "luxurious 
lifestyle" of the current White House press corps is explored. 
According to the article, "Reporters are coddled and spoiled by 
White House press aides, spending their companies' money 
extravagantly on the road and whining when the food and beverages 
aren't up to first-class standards or served when they want 
them."
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

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O what fine thought we had because we thought    | bigred@shout.net
That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.  | Illinois,
  -- W.B. Yeats, "Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen" | I'm your boy.
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