Damage at White House Offices Being Handed Over to the Bush Administration from The Clinton Staff..
The final, official report from the Government Accounting Office was released on June 11, 2002. The 220 page document says there was damage. The GAO says the damage included 62 missing computer keyboards, 26 cell phones, two cameras, ten antique doorknobs and several presidential medallions and office signs. The damage estimate was about $20,000.
The Clintons removed from the White House several pieces of furniture donated to the White House, not to them personally, during a 1993 redecorating project, the Washington Post revealed on Monday. Not a word about it aired on the CBS and NBC morning shows on Monday, while ABC's GMA gave it a sentence, and neither ABC’s World News Tonight or the CBS Evening News touched the disclosure Monday night. But three networks did find the development worthy of a full story Monday night: CNN ran a piece on Inside Politics, FNC covered it during Special Report with Brit Hume and NBC Nightly News aired a story by Lisa Myers.
The Washington Post listed these as the items with which the Clinton absconded:
-- "$19,900 two sofas, an easy chair and an ottoman from Steve Mittman, New York.
-- "$3,650 kitchen table and four chairs from Lee Ficks, Cincinnati.
-- "$2,843 sofa from Brad Noe, High Point, N.C.
-- "$1,170 lamps from Stuart Schiller, Hialeah, Fla.
-- "$1,000 needlepoint rug from David Martinous, Little Rock."
"Gifts Were Not Meant for Clintons, Some Donors Say," announced the headline over the February 5 story by George Lardner Jr. which the Washington Post placed on page 3. Here’s an excerpt:
Among the gifts that former President Bill Clinton says he is keeping as personal presents he accepted last year are $28,000 worth of furnishings that documents and interviews indicate were given to the National Park Service in 1993 as part of the permanent White House collection.
The Park Service serves as a steward for the White House and, according to the White House curator's office, is the only unit with the legal authority to accept gifts for the White House. A gift meant for the current White House occupants, by contrast, is routed through the White House gifts office, a separate unit.
Two of the furniture makers whose donations Clinton took with him on leaving the White House last month say they gave them to the White House as part of a widely publicized, $396,000 redecoration of the executive mansion and not to Clinton personally.
"When we've been asked to donate, it was always hyphenated with the words, "‘White House,’" New York manufacturer Steve Mittman said of his family-owned business, which gave two sofas, an easy chair and an ottoman, worth $19,900 and listed by Clinton as part of the gifts he took with him. "To us, it was not a donation to a particular person."
A spokesman for the Clintons, Jim Kennedy, rejected the notion that the gifts in question had been made to the White House rather than to the Clintons. He said it was his understanding that the furnishings in question were on the White House gifts office list and that the Clintons were entitled to rely on that in deciding each year which gifts they were going to keep.
In the case of the furnishings, Kennedy said, the Clintons postponed a decision until 2000. He said "all of the items" listed on Bill Clinton's final financial disclosure report "were considered by the gifts office to be gifts to the Clintons that they could keep or leave behind."
When the redecoration project was completed in the fall of 1993, the White House distributed a four-page summary of the work, saying it had been "financed by private donations of money to the White House Historical Association, including a donation from surplus funds of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, as well as donations of goods and services to the National Park Service."
Attached was a National Park Service list of "contributors to the National Park Service" and what they had given. In addition to furniture from Mittman, the document listed "Mr. and Mrs. Lee Ficks, Cincinnati, OH., furniture; David Martinous, Little Rock, AR., rug; Mr. Brad Noe, High Point, NC., furniture; and Stuart Schiller, Hialeh, Tx., furnishings."...
Like Mittman, Joy Ficks, whose late husband headed the Ficks Reed Co., said she thought the custom-finished rattan chairs and breakfast table installed in the private quarters would remain there as government property. She was puzzled when she learned the Clintons had taken the set with them.
"We gave it to the White House," she said. "I wondered what happened to it."...
Two former Internal Revenue Service commissioners, one a Republican and the other a Democrat, said that Clinton's taking the furnishings under such circumstances would appear to be an improper "conversion of government property" that could require the Clintons to pay taxes on them. They said they were not suggesting criminal wrongdoing by the President....
Thank you notes to the Fickses suggest the gifts were understood to be for the White House. In a June 28, 1993, note "on behalf of the President and Mrs. Clinton," White House usher Gary J. Walters said he wanted to express "my deep appreciation for the donation of a table and a breakfast set to the Executive Residence at the White House."
In an Aug. 10, 1993, letter signed "Hillary," the then-first lady expressed appreciation "for your generous contribution to the White House."...
Thursday, 8 February, 2001
Former US President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton have returned $28,000 worth of White House furnishings they took with them when he left office.
Last week they announced they would pay back $86,000 - slightly less than half the value of the $190,000 in gifts they are reported to have received.
Wow...will the real criminals raise there LEFT hand?
|
