ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 6, 1996 TAG: 9608060072
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
NOTE: Below
Former White House chief of staff Mack McLarty told Congress he ``felt a pressure'' from Hillary Rodham Clinton in May 1993 to take action against the White House travel office. Three days later, the entire staff was fired.
And Hollywood producer Harry Thomason, who has emerged as a central figure in the controversial firings, told the same House investigators Clinton had said to him the workers ``ought to be gotten out.''
The two statements, both from close friends of the first family, were contained in depositions and documents released Monday by a Republican-led House investigative committee. The material portrays Clinton as a prime instigator in the episode.
The firings, which presidential aides later acknowledged were improper, have become a major political embarrassment for the White House and the subject of a special prosecutor's investigation.
The possibility that the first lady played a role in the botched firings first emerged in January when a 3-year-old draft memo by ex-White House administration chief David Watkins was discovered belatedly and turned over to investigators.
That memo said there would be ``hell to pay'' if Watkins did not fire the travel office workers ``in conformity with the first lady's wishes.''
Clinton has said publicly - and has sworn in legal documents - that she expressed concerns about reports of financial mismanagement in the travel office but never pressured anyone to take action or suggested the workers be fired.
However, Thomason and McLarty both recounted in their depositions two conversations each had with Clinton in the days before the firings. Both said their first conversations were brief, and the second more detailed.
``I think that when the first lady - the second conversation where it was more detailed - she said they ought to be gotten out, but what would we do about trips?'' Thomason was quoted as saying.
McLarty said he felt pressure to take action after Clinton spoke to him prior to a dinner in the White House residence May 16, 1993, just three days before the firings.
``I believe the first lady had a serious concern about this matter, and I felt a pressure from her to take it seriously and to act upon it if necessary,'' McLarty was quoted as saying.
McLarty, a boyhood friend of the president, said three days before the dinner encounter, Hillary Clinton requested a meeting with him to discuss the travel office for the first time. ``She came to my office and raised this matter with me. And that was - I heard about it at that point.''
Rep. William Clinger, R-Pa., chairman of the House committee investigating the firings, accused the White House on Monday of protecting Clinton by withholding documents, refusing to answer questions and providing witnesses with ``hazy memories.''
He called it a ``most striking patterns of obfuscation and obstruction.'' Clinger also said he was giving the White House until mid-August to turn over documents or face a contempt of Congress vote.
When asked whether Clinton ever specifically recommended the workers be fired, McLarty answered, ``I don't recall her saying anything of that nature to me, and I just simply don't believe she did.''
``I think that was really what she was saying, was `Let's make a decision,''' he added.
McLarty, who remains a senior presidential adviser, also said he could not recall his handwritten notation that read ``HRC pressure'' alongside the May 16, 1993, date of his dinner encounter with Clinton. The Associated Press first reported the document earlier this year.
``What I believe it probably reflects is either a notation of what someone else said at this meeting ... or it may reflect my exchange with the first lady on the 16th that we had a pressure to act about this matter,'' he answered.
The depositions suggest Clinton kept an interest in the travel office matter after it was being investigated.
White House special counsel Jane Sherburne disclosed that after the White House found the Watkins memo last January - and before it was turned over to congressional investigators - she twice talked to Clinton about it.
``I know I informed her that we would be producing it,'' Sherburne said in her deposition. She declined, however, to say what Clinton's reaction was, citing executive privilege.
Sherburne also said she has ``periodic'' contact with Clinton about travel office matters ``when an issue would surface or get particular press attention.''
Citing an audit of alleged financial wrongdoing, the White House fired the seven longtime workers in the travel office, which arranges flights for the press covering the president. The new administration put a 25-year-old distant cousin of the president in charge.
LENGTH: Medium: 90 linesby CNB