Clinton Friend in Travel Office Probe Turns Over ‘Relevant’ Data

WASHINGTON — With a congressional showdown looming, Hollywood producer Harry Thomason, the first family’s close friend, turned over to investigators on Monday about 200 pages of documents detailing his role in the White House travel office affair.

In a letter to the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, Thomason’s lawyer said the records were those his client believes are relevant to the committee’s investigation.

A spokesman for Committee Chairman William F. Clinger Jr. (R-Pa.) said the limited disclosure would not deter the panel from seeking a subpoena to compel Thomason to produce a wide range of documents.

Ed Amorosi, Clinger’s spokesman, said it was “ludicrous” for Thomason to determine which documents were relevant. “By no means are the documents provided today in compliance with the committee request,” he said.

Among the documents Thomason surrendered was an edited list of contacts and telephone calls with the White House in May, 1993, when seven longtime White House travel office employees were fired and a distant cousin of President Clinton was put in charge of the operation. The list includes only those White House contacts deemed relevant to the travel office by Thomason.

“To the extent any additional phone records or calendars still exist, we respectfully declined to make them available on such an undifferentiated basis,” Robert Bennett, Thomason’s attorney, wrote Clinger.

The firings are at the heart of the committee’s investigation, which has focused on the extensive access and involvement Thomason had inside the White House as a private citizen in the early days of the Clinton administration.

Subsequent reviews showed Thomason had inquired about the possibility of opening up travel office business to competitive bidding around the time of the firings.

The committee also recently produced evidence that Thomason used his relationship with Clinton to promote a business associate for a possible government contract.

The panel is seeking records of all of Thomason’s White House dealings to determine whether he should have been treated as a special government employee subject to conflict-of-interest laws.