Posted on 02/09/2002 6:59:22 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
In an astonishing reversal of President Bush's nonchalant attitude towards an array of corruption charges against Bill and Hillary Clinton, the president and his aides are now said to be "quietly pushing" a probe into allegations that Clinton staffers trashed the White House in Jan. 2001.
What's more, they've asked that the newly revved up investigation focus on the East Wing, where former first lady Hillary Clinton had her offices.
The shift could mean the GAO probe will also examine evidence that Mrs. Clinton absconded with furniture and other White House artifacts to decorate her private mansions in New York and Washington.
"White House folks suggested we cast as wide a net as possible," GAO director Bernard Ungar told the New York Daily News Saturday, adding that the Bushies wanted to redirect the probe's previous focus from the Eisenhower office building to Mrs. Clinton official digs.
The request for action on the Clinton vandalism charges prompted complaints from GAO chief David Walker, who told the News, "they want us to do more work than is even reasonable."
The Clinton probe could prove distracting to Walker's focus in recent weeks: prying loose White House records on meetings between Vice President Dick Cheney and Enron officials.
Immediately after reports of White House vandalism, Bush seemed to take no interest in the episode and urged the media to look that other way.
"There might have been a prank or two, maybe somebody put a cartoon on the wall, but that's OK." he told reporters. "It's time now to move forward."
But after Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner complained last June that Clinton workers had been unfairly smeared and demanded the Bushies apologize, White House press spokesman Ari Fleischer said the destruction was more extensive then the president had let on.
A list of damages he released included:
75 phones that had been "tampered with," including 10 where the lines had been cut.
Twenty percent of the desks in the Eisenhower Office complex had been overturned.
Obscene graffiti was discovered by Bush staffers in six offices.
A 20-inch-wide presidential seal had been ripped off a wall.
One hundred computer keyboards had been rendered inoperable by the Clinton vandals.
Pornography was left behind in White House photocopiers.
Trash was spilled throughout the White House counsel's office, along with other assorted random damage.
One estimate put the cost of the destruction as high as $250,000.
Bush administration spokeswoman Claire Buchan said the White House counsel's office had photographs of the vandalism, but did not explain why they were not offered to the GAO when the agency first requested proof in April.
In releasing the list of damages, Fleischer explained, "We tried to be gracious, but the last administration would not take graciousness." Claims that Bush staffers had lied about the destruction had forced him to respond, he said.
After Fleischer's comments, the GAO's Ungar began backtracking on his April report that there was no unusual damage to the White House after Clinton staffers departed.
"Ungar said the GAO found accounts of damage that included telephones disconnected from wall jacks, phones with extension numbers defaced and tables and desks that were overturned," reported Newsday, in a follow up story on Fleischer's list.
It's not clear whether the White House's newly aggressive attitude will translate into action in the office of the U.S. Attorney for New York's Southern District, which has been accused of footdragging in its probe into the Clinton Pardongate scandal.
They forgot "sticky residue in the Oval Office sink..."
Nope! Al Gore won on this one. Remember when she threw a lamp at Clinton?
I think it was because she didn't get her office in the West Wing. ;-)
Two questions :
1. He is a crdible source because................?
2. What is the purpose of telling this to the newspapers?
[both rhetorical questions, BTW]
President Bush has gone out of his way to accommodate those on the other side of the aisle. I find it hard to believe he would be so stoooooooopid as to say "Hey, we want to go after Hillary Clinton. Let's target her!"
Me thinks it is another smear attempt on the part of certain partisans to trash the President of the United States. Mighty fishy......the story, not Hillary. Well the story AND Hillary - can't forget ole' Crusty.
Nothing would suprise me from that trash in the White House. Why has no proof been offered to show maintainance records of the damage? Did the RNC give out talking points for those who don't have time to "think"?
That is wise. I worked there, briefly, during the Bush Sr. Administration. Beyond one other fellow conservative, virtually everyone I knew there was a lib.
I remember getting grief over wearing an Adam Smith necktie when interviewing some Executive Branch people. I was told that I was "signalling my willingness to collude" with the Administration. Then there was the time, after the "Multicultural Diversity Fashion Show," when I was accused of insensitivity for commenting that it was probably not appropriate to wear what looked like one's bathrobe to the office.
Virtually everyone there was a liberal with a large axe to grind.
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