Posted on 06/14/2002 6:12:11 PM PDT by kattracks
Former Vice President Al Gore did not return a bust of Abraham Lincoln that he had "inadvertently" taken from the White House until Vice President Dick Cheney inquired about the missing item six months after taking office, a General Accounting Office report on the incident reveals.
The GAO report on the episode was part of the investigation into allegations that Clinton-Gore staff vandalized the White House before turning it over to the Bush administration on Jan. 20, 2001.
The investigation concluded that the former vice president kept the priceless White House sculpture until July 2001, when he was challenged by an unnamed Cheney counsel.
The GAO said:
"Regarding a Lincoln bust that two EOP staff told us was missing, but was subsequently returned, a former employee who also worked in the former vice president's transition office provided us with a copy of a July 6, 2001, letter that he received from the counsel to Vice President Cheney asking about the missing item.
"The former employee said that, after receiving the letter, he located the bust at former Vice President Gore's personal residence and that he returned it to the White House on July 11, 2001.
"The former employee also provided us with a July 11, 2001, letter to the counsel to the vice president, in which he wrote that 'it appears that the bust was inadvertently packed with the personal effects of Vice President Gore.' The former counsel to the former vice president told us that Mr. Gore did not pack his own items in his office at the end of the administration," the GAO concluded.
To read the GAO report on Gore's Lincoln bust, go to: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02360.pdf ("Allegations of Damage During the 2001 Presidential Transition," page 47.)
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Al Gore
Bush Administration
Clinton Scandals
And who unpacked the items once they arrived at the Gore home?
algore, or his minions (yeah... right) steal a 'priceless' national treasure and he's allowed to return it without consequence.
Are the laws only for us to obey, and not them?
What's to be done about that?
Algore invented Abraham Lincoln.
I'm sure the bust was safe in a lockbox, dontcha know?
Probably the renters from the slum down the hill......
Well, now we real people have a precedent to call up and take all the way to the Supreme Court. I'm heading up to my local drugstore right now (and right after I've returned from it dropping a roll of film. Shoot!) What's the most expensive thing there I can filch?
What are you trying to say?
That the bust was found lying, face up, in algore's bed, with pillows arranged below it to form a 'body' and the blankets pulled up to its neck?
Are you saying that it had to be steam cleaned, to remove caked-on lipstick, eye shadow and 'other substances' from its tarnished surfaces?
Are you saying that it would be best to simply give a decent burial to the now-defiled statue?
In a word, Yes. That's why they keep writing laws they know they don't have to obey.
What's to be done about that?
Absolutely nothing, as long as there are loyal Clintonites in our government.
Al should be arrested for theft. If you or I stole, say, a napkin with the White House seal on it, we'd be arrested.
Yes! Are you just figuring this out?
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