Clintons Shipped Furniture Year Ago
White House Usher Doubted Ownership
By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 10, 2001; Page A01
President Bill Clinton and his wife started shipping furniture from the White House to the Clintons' newly purchased home in New York more than a year ago, despite questions at the time by the chief usher about whether they were entitled to remove the items.
The day before the items were shipped out, White House chief usher Gary J. Walters said he asked 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 center table with wood top -- were "personal gifts received by the Clintons prior to President Clinton's 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 Clintons' new home in Chappaqua. They were not listed among the controversial gifts Clinton revealed, the day before he left office this year, that he and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), had taken with them.
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 the items, a Ficks-Reed wicker table, was logged in at the White House on Feb. 8, 1993. Joy Ficks, the widow of the manufacturer, told The Washington Post last week it was meant for the White House, not the Clintons, and she thought it would stay there.
The Clintons' interior decorator, Kaki Hockersmith, had been soliciting gifts for the White House redecoration project even before the 1993 inauguration, according to some of those she approached. Walters said he understood she was telling donors that the furnishings were for the executive mansion rather than the Clintons personally.
"As far as we were concerned, they were government property," Walters said of all the gifts obtained for the $396,000 redecoration project.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A51211-2001Feb9¬Found=true
See also:
• Clintons Will Pay for Half of Gifts (The Washington Post, Feb 3, 2001)
• Who Said You Can't Take It With You? (The Washington Post, Jan 26, 2001)
• Clintons Take Away $190,000 in Gifts (The Washington Post, Jan 21, 2001)
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