Producer Thomason Seeks Dismissal of Travel Office Suit

WASHINGTON —  Hollywood producer Harry Thomason, a central figure in the White House travel office controversy, is seeking dismissal of a civil damage suit against him on grounds that a leading Republican congressman misused his official powers to further the lawsuit.

In papers filed in federal court this week, Thomason, a close friend of President and Mrs. Clinton, charged that Rep. William F. Clinger Jr. (R-Pa.) used the powers of his office to get documents that were then improperly passed on to bolster the $23-million private damage suit.

Clinger’s motive was “to keep the 3-year-old travel office matter alive through an election year to embarrass” the Clintons, the court papers said.

The suit Thomason is attacking was filed last month by Billy R. Dale, the former travel office director, and other office workers fired by the White House in May 1993. It seeks damages from Thomason and a business partner, Darnell Martens, for unlawfully interfering with their employment by spreading rumors that they were corrupt.

White House memos obtained by the committee, as well as testimony, showed that Thomason had urged their firings, on grounds of alleged corruption, in direct conversations with the Clintons and with then-presidential aides David Watkins, William Kennedy and the late Vincent Foster.

But Washington attorney Robert S. Bennett, representing Thomason and Martens, charged in his court papers that the lawsuit resulted from Clinger’s “abuse of congressional oversight authority to obtain documents in confidence from Messrs. Thomason and Martens, which were then selectively leaked to the press . . . Mr. Dale and others to further private lawsuits.”

Clinger has spearheaded the congressional inquiry as chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. Ed Amorosi, a spokesman for Clinger, said that “making false accusations against innocent people is nothing new for Mr. Thomason and his attorney. Their charges have no basis in fact.”

Thomason’s motion also said that Clinger had improperly arranged “appearances by Mr. Dale and the plaintiffs in this suit at political fund-raisers, political press conferences and other political events.”

As an example, Bennett said that filing of the damage suit last month “was announced by Dale at a Capitol Hill press conference with Clinger and House Speaker Newt Gingrich.”

“Due to this partisan campaign, Messrs. Thomason and Martens have had to endure a stream of unfair and inaccurate allegations about their conduct and incur substantial legal fees, notwithstanding that they have been exonerated of wrongdoing by the Department of Justice” and other agencies, the court statement said.

In April, Justice Department attorneys ended a lengthy investigation, saying that they found Thomason did not violate conflict-of-interest laws and had not impeded the department’s investigation as prosecutors had first suspected.

The department had focused on whether Thomason used a temporary White House pass and office to lobby for an aviation firm he co-owned with Martens to obtain some government-related travel business. Thomason received White House credentials in connection with Clinton’s inauguration, which he staged.

In hearings over the last year, Clinger’s committee has portrayed Thomason as the source of early White House rumors that Dale and other employees in the travel office were “on the take” from transportation firms that handled arrangements for reporters traveling with the president. The FBI found no evidence that the rumors were true.