WASHINGTON (AP) — Independent Counsel Robert Ray said Thursday there is "substantial evidence" that Hillary Rodham Clinton played a role in White House travel office firings, contrary to her denials, but he won't bring charges against her.
Ray said he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that "any of Mrs. Clinton's statements and testimony regarding her involvement in the travel office firings were knowingly false."
"The independent counsel has declined prosecution of Mrs. Clinton," Ray said.
The prosecutor also criticized the White House for what he called "substantial resistance" to providing "relevant evidence" to his investigators.
"The White House asserted unfounded privileges that were later rejected in court," Ray said. "White House officials also conducted inadequate searches for documents and failed to make timely production of documents, including relevant e-mails."
Ray issued the statement after closing out the investigation into the 1993 firings of all seven employees of the White House travel office, which spurred one of the first major controversies of President Clinton's tenure.
The announcement comes less than six months before the election. The first lady is seeking to become a U.S. senator from New York.
When Ray recently announced the closing of the FBI files investigation, he praised the White House for cooperation and emphasized there was no "substantial" evidence of wrongdoing.
But in Thursday's statement, Ray challenged the veracity of Mrs. Clinton's account of the firings. She has repeatedly stated she did not play a role in them.
Mrs. Clinton "had discussions with Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster, Chief of Staff Mack McLarty and longtime friend and adviser Harry Thomason," he noted. Ray also said a direct telephone conversation she had with David Watkins, then the White House administration chief, "ultimately influenced Watkins' decision to fire the travel office employees."
"Nevertheless, the evidence was insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that any of Mrs. Clinton's statements and testimony regarding her involvement in the travel office firings were knowingly false," he said.
The White House travel office workers who were fired served at the pleasure of the president and could have been terminated without any reason. But a White House lawyer who worked for Foster contacted the FBI to pass along rumors of financial improprieties before the workers were fired.
Republicans accused the White House of using the FBI to justify the firings.
Foster later committed suicide.
The White House conducted an internal review and issued a public apology, saying the firings had been mishandled. It also reprimanded four presidential aides while recommending that five of the seven former employees be given new government jobs. The former head of the office was prosecuted and acquitted of financial wrongdoing.
Ray's predecessor, Kenneth Starr, zeroed in on the travel office in January 1996 when a memo by Watkins surfaced stating that Mrs. Clinton had been behind the firings.
A year and a half earlier, Mrs. Clinton had denied ordering the dismissals in written answers a White House lawyer submitted on her behalf to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
"We ... knew that there would be hell to pay if ... we failed to take swift and decisive action in conformity with the first lady's wishes," Watkins wrote in his unaddressed memo, adding that he had been "as protective and vague as possible" in his own answers to investigators.
"Once this made it onto the first lady's agenda, Vince Foster became involved, and he" and "Thomason regularly informed me of her ... insistence that the situation be resolved immediately by replacing the travel office staff," Watkins wrote.
Mrs. Clinton continued to insist she didn't direct the firings. "I had no decision-making role with regard to the removal," Mrs. Clinton said in written answers to Congress in 1996.