From: hooker@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu ( BOB HOOKER)
Subject: Re: Bush dismisses official involved in Clinton record search
Organization: ILS
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 18:35:33 GMT

In article <filesU2NA135pe@clarinet.com>, clarinews@clarinet.com (SID
BALMAN Jr.) writes:
> 
> 	WASHINGTON (UPI) -- President Bush accepted Tuesday the resignation of
> Elizabeth Tamposi, a State Department political appointee who was under
> investigation for her role in searching through the passport files of
> Bill Clinton while he was running for president.
> 	The announcement of the resignation came the same day that the
> Washington Post reported that Tamposi's office also searched the files
> of independent presidential candidate Ross Perot.
> 	State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said investigators also
> would look into the allegations about Perot's files.
> 	Tamposi, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, had
> issued her pro forma resignation Nov. 4 and it was accepted Tuesday by
> Bush after a telephone conversation with acting Secretary of State
> Lawrence Eagleburger, the spokesman said.
> 	``It's about time,'' George Stephanopoulos, Clinton's director of
> communications, said at the president-elect's headquarters in Little
> Rock, Ark. ``This is a matter of serious concern. There was a lot of
> abuse of power during this campaign.''
> 	Boucher said in his statement: ``On the recommendation of the acting
> secretary of state, the president accepted the resignation of Betty
> Tamposi. She will be leaving her office by the end of the day tomorrow.''
> 	That recommendation came after Eagleburger reviewed the prelimiary
> results of the State Department inspector general's investigation into
> the Clinton issue, Boucher said.
> 	He said Bush has not yet accepted the resignations of any other
> political appointees 
> 	Boucher would not reveal the results of Inspector General Sherman
> Funk's investigation, initiated after allegations were raised prior to
> the presidential election that Tamposi's office rummaged through the
> passport files of Clinton and his mother, Virginia Kelley.
> 	He said the results of that investigation would be made available 
> ``in a few days.''
> 	In its story on Perot Tuesday, the Post said a National Archives memo
> stated that Richard McClevey, chief of the State Department's office of
> program support, and two other officials researched Perot's passport
> application files on Oct. 13.
> 	McClevey and the other two unidentified officials ``removed one
> application and two letters from his (Perot's) company that were loose
> in the files.''
> 	``It's a gross abuse of federal power,'' Perot told the newspaper. 
> ``Somebody ought to hold them accountable for it.''
> 	On Clinton's files, the State Department said at the time that the
> search which occured at embassies in London and Oslo and at a record
> storage center in Maryland were conducted in response to Freedom of
> Information Act requests from the media.
> 	But the department later backed off from its position that the search
> was standard operating procedure after additional allegations of
> impropriety by Tamposi's office arose. Eagleburger handed the entire
> matter over to the inspector general Oct. 19.
> 	The alleged mishandling of Clinton's files by Tamposi, a long-time
> Republican-party operative who was a friend of former White House chief
> of staff John Sununu, became an issue prior to the presidential
> election.
> 	The researching of his files was viewed by Clinton supporters as an
> attempt by political appointees to find something damaging about the
> Democratic presidential nominee during his youth, when he was an active
> opponent of the Vietnam War.
> 	Asked if he thought TAmposi was ordered from above to make the
> probes, Stephanopoulos said, ``It almost doesn't matter....She is a
> political appointee. If she was working in an atmosphere where she
> thought this was okay, that's as much as a problem as if she was
> directed.''
> 
> 
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