Fbi Wasn’t Pressured, Review Says
White House officials did not pressure the FBI to investigate the travel office employees fired in 1993 by the Clinton administration, a Justice Department review says.
Republicans have contended there was such pressure.
The report by the department’s internal investigations unit was released Wednesday, a day after the White House endorsed plans to pay the legal expenses of the seven fired employees and admonished President Clinton’s lawyer for attacking the travel office’s former director.
At the White House on Wednesday, the president’s press secretary retracted criticism he leveled at the lawyer.
The Justice Department’s report said that “agents who had direct contact with the White House as well as their superiors at (FBI headquarters) followed normal procedures in responding to the travel office matter.”
The FBI agents who spoke with White House Associate Counsel William Kennedy about the travel office “all agree that they did not interpret Kennedy’s statements as threats or attempts by him to pressure them to respond … in an inappropriate manner or in any way inconsistent with normal procedures,” the report said.
Michael Shaheen, director of the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility and author of the report, concluded there was no misconduct on the part of the FBI. The appearance of White House pressure had been erroneously created by what he called White House mistakes of prematurely firing travel office employees and publicly disclosing the FBI inquiry, he said.
His report, completed March 18, 1994, was released in response to Freedom of Information requests from news organizations.
Republicans and the attorney for Billy Dale, the fired travel office director, have accused the White House of purging the seven employees and prompting an FBI inquiry to justify their secret desire to fill the travel office with Clinton cronies.
The White House has denied the charges. Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton say widespread mismanagement in the travel office warranted close scrutiny, though they concede that the May 1993 episode was not handled properly.