Thread: So the Clinton's weren't so bad...or were they?

So the Clinton's weren't so bad...or were they?

Posted by Amy L. Geiger-Hemmer on Nov. 7, 2015

The following has made its rounds on the Internet for quite a while, but now with Mrs. Clinton being crowned "The One" as the Democratic presidential candidate, it bears repeating. (Author unknown).
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If you're under 50 you really need to read this. If you're over 50, you lived through it, so share it with those under 50.

When Bill Clinton was president, he allowed Hillary to assume authority over a health care reform. Even after threats and intimidation, she couldn't even get a vote in a democratic controlled congress. This fiasco cost the American taxpayers about $13 million in cost for studies, promotion, and other efforts
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Then President Clinton gave Hillary authority over selecting a female attorney general. Her first two selections were Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood - both were forced to withdraw their names from consideration.

Next she chose Janet Reno - husband Bill described her selection as "my worst mistake."Some may not remember that Reno made the decision to gas David Koresh and the Branch Davidian religious sect in Waco , Texas resulting in dozens of deaths of women and children.

Husband Bill allowed Hillary to make recommendations for the head of the Civil Rights Commission. Lani Guanier was her selection. When a little probing led to the discovered of Ms. Guanier's radical views, her name had to be withdrawn from consideration. Apparently a slow learner, husband Bill allowed Hillary to make some more recommendations. She chose former law partners Web Hubbel for the Justice Department, Vince Foster for the White House staff, and William Kennedy for the Treasury Department. Her selections went well: Hubbel went to prison, Foster (presumably) committed suicide, and Kennedy was forced to resign.

Many younger votes will have no knowledge of "Travelgate." Hillary wanted to award unfettered travel contracts to Clinton friend Harry Thompson - and the White House Travel Office refused to comply. She managed to have them reported to the FBI and fired. This ruined their reputations, cost them their jobs, and caused a thirty-six month investigation. Only one employee, Billy Dale was charged with a crime, and that of the enormous crime of mixing personal and White House funds. A jury acquitted him of any crime in less than two hours.

Still not convinced of her ineptness, Hillary was allowed to recommend a close Clinton friend, Craig Livingstone, for the position of Director of White House security. When Livingstone was investigated for the improper access of about 900 FBI files of Clinton enemies (Filegate) and the widespread use of drugs by White House staff, suddenly Hillary and the president denied even knowing Livingstone, and of course, denied knowledge of drug use in the White House. Following this debacle, the FBI closed its White House Liaison Office after more than thirty years of service to seven presidents.

Next, when women started coming forward with allegations of sexual harassment and rape by Bill Clinton, Hillary was put in charge of the "bimbo eruption" and scandal defense. Some of her more notable decisions in the debacle was: She urged her husband not to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit. After the Starr investigation they settled with Ms. Jones.

She refused to release the Whitewater documents, which led to the appointment of Ken Starr as Special Prosecutor. After $80 million dollars of taxpayer money was spent, Starr's investigation led to Monica Lewinsky, which led to Bill lying about and later admitting his affairs. Hillary's devious game plan resulted in Bill losing his license to practice law for 'lying under oath' to a grand jury and then his subsequent impeachment by the House of Representatives.

Hillary avoided indictment for perjury and obstruction of justice during the Starr investigation by repeating, "I do not recall," "I have no recollection," and "I don't know" a total of 56 times while under oath.

After leaving the White House, Hillary was forced to return an estimated $200,000 in White House furniture, china, and artwork that she had stolen.

What a swell party - ready for another four or eight year of this type low-life mess? Now we are exposed to the destruction of possibly incriminating emails while Hillary was Secretary of State and the "pay to play" schemes of the Clinton Foundation - we have no idea what shoe will fall next.

But to her loyal fans - "what difference does it make?"


Electing Hillary Clinton president would be like granting Satan absolution and giving him the keys to heaven! Please pass this on. Our way of life may depend on it.
http://www.lakecountrynow.com/opinio...342569682.html

After leaving the White House, Hillary was forced to return an estimated $200,000 in White House furniture, china, and artwork that she had stolen.

Did they rent a U Haul for it?

From the LA Times 2001.

Clintons Began Taking White House Property a Year Ago


February 10, 2001|From the Washington Post

WASHINGTON — President Clinton and his wife started shipping White House furniture to the Clintons' newly purchased home in New York more than a year ago, despite questions at the time by the White House chief usher about whether they were entitled to remove the items.

The day before the items were shipped out, chief usher Gary Walters said he questioned whether the Clintons should be taking the furnishings because he believed they were government property donated as part of a White House redecoration project in 1993, during Clinton's first year in office.

But Walters was told by the White House counsel's office that the items he asked about--which included an iron-and-glass coffee table, a painted TV armoire, a custom wood gaming table and a wicker table with wood top--were "personal gifts received by the Clintons prior to President Clinton assuming office."

Personal property brought to the White House by an incoming president does not have to be disclosed on financial reports. As a result of the counsel's determination, the furnishings were sent on to the Clinton's new home in Chappaqua, N.Y.


However, government records show that the gifts that concerned Walters did not arrive at the White House until after the Clintons moved in. At least one of these items, a Ficks-Reed wicker table, was logged in at the White House on Feb. 8, 1993. The widow of the manufacturer, Joy Ficks, said last week that it was meant for the White House, not the Clintons.

This week, the Clintons returned the four items to the White House, along with other furnishings, after questions were raised about whether they actually belonged to the Clintons. All the furnishings had been designated official White House property by the Park Service in 1993.

Julia Payne, a spokeswoman for the former president, said the Clintons wanted to be "over cautious" in light of the concerns that had been raised. Despite the questions posed by Walters, Payne said the Clintons or their interior decorator acquired the four items in Little Rock, Ark., before they came to Washington.

Kaki Hockersmith, the interior decorator, did not return repeated calls this week seeking comment.

The Clintons came under strong criticism after disclosing that they were taking with them $190,000 in gifts received over the last eight years. GOP lawmakers and others criticized Hillary Rodham Clinton in particular for accepting many presents just before she joined the Senate and became covered by strict ethics rules that prohibit accepting gifts worth more than $50.

Bowing to such criticism, the Clintons decided Feb. 2 to pay for $86,000 worth of gifts given them in 2000. This week, they agreed to return another set of gifts, including the four items questioned by Walters, and $28,500 more in furnishings identified by the Washington Post this week as having been legally designated as White House property by the National Park Service.

Walters said he accepted the determination of the counsel's office that the gifts were personal Clinton property without a fuss. "I'm not a lawyer. I didn't feel I was in a position to argue with the counsel's office." He said he'd been troubled all along by the lack of donor letters.

Payne said, "No item, nothing, was removed without the approval of the usher's and curator's office."

Walters blamed himself for not raising questions when the rest of the furnishings were taken from the White House last month. He said an aide to Sen. Clinton had told him these too were "the Clintons' personal property."

"I should have asked for more specifics on these items," he said. "I shoulder the blame for not saying, 'Hey, wait a minute.' "

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/feb/10/news/mn-23723

ABC News
Clintons Return White House Furniture
Former President Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, have sent $28,000 worth of household goods back to Washington after questions arose over whether the items were intended as personal gifts or donations to the White House.

“We have been informed that it is being shipped back, and the National Park Service is ready to receive it, take possession of it and take custody of it,” Jim McDaniel, the National Park Service’s liaison to the White House, said Wednesday.

“The property is being returned to government custody until such time that the issues can be resolved. It may well turn out that that property is rightly the personal property of the Clintons.”

Giving Back

After they were criticized for taking $190,000 worth of china, flatware, rugs, televisions, sofas and other gifts with them when they left, the Clintons announced last week that they would pay for $86,000 worth of gifts, or nearly half the amount.

Their latest decision to send back $28,000 in gifts brings to $114,000 the value of items the Clintons have either decided to pay for or return.

McDaniel discussed the matter Wednesday with Betty Monkman, the White House curator, and Gary Walters, the chief usher, or executive manager of the White House.

They were reviewing the gifts the Clintons chose to keep after $28,000 worth of items were found on a list of donations the Park Service received for the 1993 White House redecoration project. The Washington Post this week quoted three people who said that they assumed the furnishings they donated for the project would stay in the White House.

“As a result of questions about the status of certain property donated to the White House during the Clinton administration, the National Park Service will accept the return of the property in question and act as a custodian of such property,” according to a statement released by the Park Service, which administers the White House as a unit of the national park system.

A person familiar with the Clintons’ move out of the White House, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would say only: “They’ve been returned.”

Furniture Movers

While the Clintons’ decision to return these gifts was a way to get out from under this and other criticism surrounding their departure from the White House, the couple provided scant details about the shipment.

Mrs. Clinton’s office referred all questions about the gift return to the former president’s transition office. Transition office workers said the Clintons would make no statement. They referred all questions to the Park Service, which wasn’t exactly sure which gifts were being returned or where they had been kept.

In a statement released Monday, Clinton’s transition office said every item they accepted was identified by the White House gift office as a present to them. They said none of the gifts taken was on a curator’s list of official White House property.

“Gifts did not leave the White House without the approval of the White House usher’s and curator’s offices,” the statement said. “Of course, if the White House now determines that a cataloging error occurred, ... any item in question will be returned.”

Instead of waiting for the issue to be resolved, the Clintons returned the items.

The gifts in question were: A kitchen table and four chairs valued at $3,650 from Lee Ficks of Cincinnati, Ohio; a $1,000 needlepoint rug from David Martinous of Little Rock, Ark.; two sofas, an easy chair and an ottoman worth $19,900 from Steve Mittman of New York; lamps valued at $1,170 from Stuart Shiller of Hialeah, Fla.; and a $2,843 sofa from Brad Noe, a businessman from California.

The gifts were just one of several flaps that followed the Clintons out of the White House:

Lawmakers are questioning Clinton’s desire to rent expensive office space in New York City at government expense. Because of the contention, the former president’s foundation has offered to pay at least $300,000 of an estimated $790,000 annual rent for the office Clinton favors.

Mrs. Clinton, the new senator from New York, has faced questions about the propriety of accepting the gifts in the period between her election and her swearing-in. Senate rules would have limited what she could accept had she been a senator.

Members of both parties also have criticized Clinton for granting scores of eleventh-hour clemency requests, including the pardon of Marc Rich, a fugitive in Switzerland from 51 counts in the United States of tax evasion and fraud.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121856

Many of these same people are now working for Obama.

White House Provides Vandalism Photo
Four months after Republicans first accused outgoing Clinton staffers of vandalizing government offices, the White House has provided photos of messy offices as proof.

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Still locked in a spin-control battle with Clinton staffers over what happened in the final hours of the former president's term, the Bush White House has handed out photos taken shortly after the handover.

The photo at left, of an office in the White House counsel's suite at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, also known as the Old Executive Office Building, where many White House staffers work. It clearly shows disarray, with boxes, books, office supplies and papers piled about haphazardly. There does not, however, appear to be evidence in the photo of outright vandalism.

Former Clinton White House staffers staged a media event last week outside the office building, which is adjacent to the White House, to deliver a letter addressed to President Bush requesting an apology for "the false allegations ... concerning damage done to the White House during the transition period."

Last month, a review by the General Services Administration determined, "The condition of the real property was consistent with what we would expect to encounter when tenants vacate office space after an extended occupancy."

Nude Photos, Sliced Phone Lines?

But the White House has confirmed a report that first appeared in The Washington Post this weekend that catalogued what Bush officials consider real vandalism found in offices: pornographic messages left on phone lines, copier paper replaced with nude photos, sliced phone lines and computer keyboards missing the letter "W" — President Bush's middle initial. The White House did not, however, provide evidence of these allegations.

Most of the damage, the White House says, was found in the Old Executive Office Building.

But Clinton aides cite the GSA report, which the Post reported found "no wholesale slashing of cords to computers, copiers, and telephones, no evidence of lewd graffiti or pornographic images, no vandalism at the White House."

The General Accounting Office also has said there is no documented evidence of vandalism at the White House.

But White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters last week: "No apology is merited."

White House officials claim the GSA only documented damage to "real property" and to the offices themselves. The study therefore would not include the sort of damage the Bush administration claims to have encountered. The GAO, they say, did not even investigate the allegations.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121599&page=1

White House Vandalized In Transition, G.A.O. Finds

By ROBERT PEAR

Published: June 12, 2002

WASHINGTON, June 11— The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said today that ''damage, theft, vandalism and pranks did occur in the White House complex'' in the presidential transition from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. The agency put the cost at $13,000 to $14,000, including $4,850 to replace computer keyboards, many with damaged or missing W keys.

Some of the damage, it said, was clearly intentional. Glue was smeared on desk drawers. Messages disparaging President Bush were left on signs and in telephone voice mail. A few of the messages used profane or obscene language.

''A Secret Service report documented the theft of a presidential seal that was 12 inches in diameter from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building,'' next to the White House, on Jan. 19, 2001, the accounting office said.

Six White House employees told investigators that they had seen graffiti derogatory to Mr. Bush on the wall of a stall in a men's room. Other White House employees saw a sticker in a filing cabinet that said, ''Jail to the thief,'' implying that Mr. Bush had stolen the 2000 election. The report said all these employees were members of the current White House, but did not make clear whether any had also worked in the Clinton White House.

The accounting office said similar pranks were reported in prior transitions, including the one from Mr. Bush's father to Mr. Clinton in 1993. ''We were unable to conclude,'' it said, ''whether the 2001 transition was worse than previous ones.''
The accounting office interviewed more than 100 government employees, but said it could not establish who was responsible for the damage and the pranks.

''Any intentional damage at the White House complex, which is a national treasure, is both inappropriate and a serious matter,'' the report said. ''The theft of or willful damage to government property would constitute a criminal act.''
The investigation was undertaken in response to a request from Representative Bob Barr, Republican of Georgia, one of Mr. Clinton's harshest critics. ''The Clinton administration treated the White House worse than college freshmen checking out of their dorm rooms,'' Mr. Barr said today.

The Bush White House was deeply disappointed with the report. Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to President Bush, had demanded that the accounting office provide more detail, including the full text of graffiti and other messages that were ''especially offensive or vulgar.''

The accounting office said such details were unnecessary and inappropriate. But Bush administration officials said the details would have revealed the ''mind-set or intentions'' of Clinton administration pranksters. Moreover, in a response much longer than the actual report, the Bush administration said, ''It appears that the G.A.O. has undertaken a concerted effort to downplay the damage found in the White House complex.''

In several instances, it appears, Clinton and Bush administration officials simply disagreed about the normal condition of federal offices. Bush officials said they had found offices full of trash, broken furniture and filthy carpets. Clinton administration officials insisted that the dirt and damage reflected normal wear and tear.

The accounting office confirmed that $9,324 had been spent to repair or replace various items and to clean offices. That included $4,850 for 62 keyboards, $2,040 for 26 cellphones and $1,150 for professional cleaning. In addition, the White House and the General Services Administration estimated that it cost $3,750 to $4,675 to replace missing doorknobs, medallions and office signs and the large presidential seal, the accounting office said.

Julia M. Payne, a spokeswoman for Mr. Clinton, referred questions to Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee.

''The real scandal here,'' Ms. Palmieri said, ''is how much time and money the Republicans have wasted in a vendetta against the Clinton administration. It's troubling that the White House cooperated so enthusiastically with this investigation, but refused to provide the G.A.O. with records of the energy task force headed by Vice President Cheney.''

Anne Womack, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bush, said: ''The G.A.O. confirmed that damage was done at the White House. We have considered this matter closed for more than a year. Our focus is on moving forward.''

To minimize damage in future transitions, the accounting office said, the government should inspect office space, furniture and equipment of departing White House employees and penalize those who willfully deface federal property.


http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/12/us...gao-finds.html