Page images
PDF
EPUB

Also, McCarthy claimed and was paid reimbursement on an expense voucher of $18 for an airline ticket Washington to New York City on September 23, 1965. Airline records show that McCarthy used a ticket purchased with the committee credit card for Washington to New York City on the same day, September 23, 1965. The committee may have paid twice for this same travel.

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, I am getting a little confused about the wording of some of these statements. Now the witness has said sometimes that the person did travel. In other places that "it appears" that he did. Then in this last statement it says McCarthy "used" a ticket.

Do we have any evidence that the person actually used the ticket other than the record itself, and have those people been interrogated or do we have any facts there?

Mr. HAYS. I am advised by counsel that this is for the record and he will explain these things after he finishes.

Mr. JONES. I mean the wording is not consistent. That is the thing I was trying to follow, and I wondered if there was some reason why the wording was not consistent? Sometimes we say "it appears." At other times it makes a statement that "he did" and that is why I was trying to differentiate between the types of statements that were being made.

Mr. O'CONNOR. Mr. Jones, if we could get this into the record, then Mr. Gray will explain those differences. Certain items are specific. On others there is some question as to whether they did or did not. There is a difference because of the wording of certain allegations. Mr. DICKINSON. What is this, and do we all have a copy

[ocr errors]

?

Mr. O'CONNOR. What the witness is testifying from is an informal report that he made several weeks ago in connection with the findings, with September 30, 1966, being used as a cutoff date. There is some conjecture in here which we did not feel should go into the record. Mr. DICKINSON. I didn't know whether we were all supposed to have a copy or not.

Mr. O'CONNOR. I don't know whether copies are available or not. We can make a copy available to each member. Certain members were furnished copies of it.

Mr. DICKINSON. What members were furnished copies?

Mr. HAYS. We will delete this discussion.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. HAYS. Proceed, Mr. O'Connor.

By Mr. O'CONNOR:

Did you make specific findings with reference to Michael Schwartz, Assistant Labor Counsel?

A. We have accounted for three trips between Washington_and Miami, Fla., for one of which he claims subsistence and related expenses. Payroll records show Schwartz residing in Miami.

On one of the three Miami trips Schwartz appears to have been in Miami 12 days, July 1 to 13, 1965, but did not claim subsistence.

In addition, Schwartz claimed subsistence and other expenses for 17 days in Miami, June 2 to 18, 1966, but we could find no record of his travel to and from Miami.

Q. Did you make specific findings with reference to C. Sumner Stone, special assistant to the chairman?

A. We have accounted for 40 trips between Washington and New York City, mostly on weekends, and 10 trips between Washington and Miami, Fla., from 2 to 9 days' duration for which no subsistence or related expenses were claimed. Eastern Airlines has reported the nonuse or refund of five trips to and from Miami or New York City totaling about $215. Also, Stone was paid $85.44 reimbursement for mileage by private auto from Chicago to Washington on March 24 and 25, 1965, but did not go on the committee payroll until April 1, 1965.

Q. Did you make specific findings with respect to Emma T. Swann, receptionist?

A. We have accounted for 16 trips between Washington and New York City, mostly on weekends, and 13 trips between Washington and Miami, Fla., from 1 to 10 days' duration. Miss Swann also made trips to Buffalo, N.Y., Chicago, Ill., and Knoxville, Tenn., during the period. She made no claim for subsistence or other related expenses for any of the travel during the period.

Q. Did you make specific findings with respect to Alfredo Vidal, administrative assistant?

A. Mr. Vidal was on the payroll for the month of April 1965 only. He flew at committee expense from Washington to New York City and return March 3 and 4, 1965, and on March 5, 1965, from New York to San Juan, P.R., on a round-trip ticket purchased by credit card. Since the travel was performed before he was on the payroll and the airline has no record of use or refund for the return portion of his ticket from San Juan, Vidal may not have been in Washington during the month of April 1965.

Q. Did you make specific findings with reference to John E. Warren, assistant clerk?

A. We have accounted for six trips between Washington and New York City and six trips of from 1 to 5 days' duration between Washington and Miami, Fla. This is the only travel performed by Warren and no subsistence claims were made.

Q. Did you make specific findings with reference to Representative Adam C. Powell?

A. We have accounted for 37 trips between Washington and New York City, most of which were made on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, or Mondays, including weekend travel. We also have accounted for 16 trips between Washington or New York City and Miami for from 6 to 20 days' duration and 6 trips to San Juan, P.R., from 1 to 6 days' duration. No subsistence or related expenses were claimed for the above travel. In addition, Eastern Airline has reported nonuse or refund of eight trips amounting to $214.

Q. Now, the summaries which you have just testified to relating to each individual, could you tell the committee what type of analyses were used on which you based your foregoing findings?

A. Well, first we prepared spread sheets detailing all travel performed by the full committee and Subcommittee No. 7, and from these spread sheets we prepared summaries then by individual travelers, and from those we have accumulated the questionable items of travel

which are shown on a separate summary spread sheet for each individual.

Q. Do you have a copy of the spread sheet which you could make available to each member and explain in detail how they are set up so that in future testimony when we are referring to spread sheets— and I might inform the members, for each witness we have a spread sheet that you can follow and use in connection with the interrogation. Perhaps you could explain the way they are made up.

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Now, would you explain to the committee what these spread sheets are that you have handed out and how we follow them.

A. Yes. Now, the only travel that is put on these sheets is the questionable travel.

Q. In other words, there could be additional travel but it is accounted for?

A. That is right. We have considerable additional travel for many of these people but we were able to find that they either claimed per diem for the travel or that there was no irregularity in their voucher or something like that. So we have eliminated that from sheets. Now, we categorized

Mr. NEDZI. Did you eliminate them also from your summary then in your testimony as to the total number of trips?

The WITNESS. Yes.

Mr. NEDZI. So that these numbers that we are getting

The WITNESS. I think we qualified that as travel that no per diem had been claimed.

By Mr. O'CONNOR:

Q. In other words, the numbers you read out before are questionable items?

A. That is right.

Mr. HAYS. The nonquestionable items you did not include in your totals that you read to the committee just now?

The WITNESs. By individual, no, sir.

Mr. Hays. In other words, to be more specific, if you read out the name of Miss "X" and you said she appeared to make 10 round trips between New York and Washington, and she didn't claim per diem for any of those, you read those?

The WITNESS. Yes.

Mr. HAYS. If they did make a trip and did not claim per diem you didn't include it?

The WITNESS. That is right.

By Mr. O'CONNOR:

Q. That wasn't included?
A. That is right.

Q. You may proceed, sir.

A. Now, we categorized these possible irregularities here, and you will notice at the top we have "Travel for which claim for subsistence was not made," and that usually is the longest item. We have a considerable listing under that. Now the-we have accounted here for each ticket. There are brackets along the columns here which would indicate that that was travel purchased on one ticket. And the date

column would be the date of the travel as verified by the actual ticket usage by the airlines. The ticket number is an abbreviated ticket number. We have the tickets and they would be available.

Any ticket that you would be interested in seeing, we have the ticket

Q. You mean to present to the witness in case some question comes up about it?

A. That is right.

Q. Am I right that the column "From" and "To," that is the origin of the flight and the destination?

A. Right, right.

Q. And the next column is the date that flight was taken on?
A. Right.

Q. And in the next is the day of the week?

A. Right.

Q. And then there is a bracket on the first entry you have here. What does that bracket indicate?

A. That means that all of that travel was purchased on one ticket. Q. And the amount, that is the amount of the ticket?

A. Total amount of the travel applicable to that ticket.

Q. OK. Going down below that you have "From," "To,” “District of Columbia," "New York," and you have an arrow pointing both ways. Would you explain that to the committee?

Ă. Those tickets were purchased on the New York-District of Columbia shuttle flight, Eastern Airlines shuttle flight, and the ticket doesn't indicate whether the flight was made from New York to the District of Columbia, or from the District of Columbia to New York. So it can be either way on those.

Q. In other words, when you buy a ticket on the shuttle, why, you could be going in either direction?

A. That is right.

Q. And you cannot tell from the ticket receipt which way they were going?

A. Right.

Mr. JONES. Pardon me. Could I ask a question?

Mr. O'CONNOR. Yes.

Mr. JONES. Were all of these purchased on credit card travel cards? The WITNESS. Yes, sir.

Mr. JONES. Does the ticket indicate the number of the travel card that was used for the purchase of that ticket?

The WITNESS. Yes, sir.

Mr. JONES. But I mean, you don't have any reference to that here? The WITNESs. We don't have reference here, not on this sheet, no. Mr. JONES. In other words, say there were 18 credit cards that were floating around. Have you identified which credit card Mr. Clark used or did he use the same credit card each time and did he apparently carry a credit card with him? Did you get that information?

The WITNESS. It is available. We haven't summarized it exactly that way. We have it on the ticket. We have all of the tickets which would show the credit-card purchase.

Mr. JONES. That is the thing I think we are going to have to do, who bought the tickets and to establish who had certain credit cards.

Unless we have that we are going to be in a mess. of these tickets by anybody; is there?

Mr. HAYS. Oh, yes.

There is no sign

Mr. JONES. What? I mean as to who used the ticket on the plane, Wayne.

Mr. O'CONNOR. The evidence I think is going to show that in certain cases the individual's credit card is right there and his name is on it, but, for instance, in the case of the Givens girl, Stone purchased the ticket, Givens' name is on that ticket, and Givens is the one that is credited with the travel. In other instances it will be Stone's credit card and the name of Harris will be on it or some other name, and we are unable to determine whether Harris or the other name actually performed that travel.

In other cases there is a committee account number, and on many tickets the committee account number appears without reference to the individual credit card. You see

Mr. JONES. I do not want to delay this. What I was trying to get at is this, in other words, if I can go off the record

Mr. HAYS. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. O'CONNOR. May we proceed again, gentlemen.

By Mr. O'CONNOR:

Q. On the right-hand side, under "Remarks," you have certain notations like "Traveled with Harris," "Traveled with Huff." Could you explain those notations to us?

A. Yes. Those are cross-referenced with-we will have a sheet for each of these other travelers and these will be cross-referenced to travel on the same flight with another employee or member of the committee.

Q. Now, if any of these tickets were purchased for personal travel, purchased with the official credit card for personal travel, did you take into consideration refunds that were made by the travelers, if it was for personal travel?

A. Yes. Those were eliminated from our study.

Q. And I have here

Mr. DICKINSON. How, please?

The WITNESS. We have a notation on our detail sheets that would show that that was refunded by an individual.

Mr. DICKINSON. How did you ascertain that this was the fact? The WITNESS. When the committee submits its voucher normally for payment for the airline travel, they would attach the personal checks which covered any items on that billing of personal travel with that voucher and it would go through the finance office here and they would pay the difference between what was billed or what they paid, taking off the personal checks, you see.

Mr. DICKINSON. Without getting too far afield into this, isn't there a difference in what you have to pay, if it is personal and Government? Isn't one tax free?

The WITNESS. No, sir; these are all taxed tickets.

Mr. DICKINSON. All taxed. Thank you.

Mr. NEDZI. Can we determine how much money was actually refunded for personal travel?

The WITNESS. Yes, sir; we can.

« PreviousContinue »