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.
Yep. They are masters at "deflect, deflect, deflect; lie, lie, lie."
However, the really good news is that krinton and wifey! just must get exposed for the grifters and traitors that they are. And in that way, this whole episode in governmental and corporate American corruption would have some small redeeming aspect.
Yep. Shift the focus and overwhelm the GAO.
For one, Rhodes Scholars are not chosen for their academics so much as their connections, "connections" being the operative in this quandary.
Time - and evidence - are on our side. Why do you think that Duby keeps saying that he is a patient man? When you need to hang someone like this, first you chip away at their credibility, then when you get them as low as you want, you hang 'em high.
Sounds as if you've had some experience with that type! Actually though, I think the "traler trash" are direct descendents of the "keepers of the vineyard" that Jesus talked about. They lived on the land and benefitted from the vineyards but when an overseer or the owner's own son came to see about it they killed them.
LouD: 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.
Gish....that is so pathetic. Sad, too. We need the GAO to be cleaned up (or out) if this is true. We need a good overseer and it sounds as if Walker is a lapdog for an very sick group of leftists.
And don't forget the picture of BJ Klinton in front of the statue of Ho Chi Min and the North Vietnamese flag.
'Zackly....
Evidence goes back to the 80s (well, and earlier) and possible connections that cross party lines (which is probably where the hot water lies), but don't you wonder who Klayman is talking to these days? Bush may not have a poker face, but he knows how to hold and use his cards. Evidence against the C*intons is immense, it's probably mostly a matter of separating the wheat from the chaff and bringing the scum to the top. And I believe the spit will generally hit the fan when the C*intons step out of line.
If this is a liberal ploy, then the demanding of an apology ( the challange to show the cards, as it were) way back when for the statements of the literal WH trashing when the clintons left office, the only reason for such a move would be to get the info out that could be damaging to hitlery's campaign for prez. TO get it out there early on, and to discover exactly how much ammo the Bush folks have. By accomplishing this, she could evade questions later by saying tired old excuse of "This has all been out there before, it is old news, and finished business as far as I am concerned. When will the VRWC ever LEAVE POOR ME ALONE?"
I hope you are wrong...but it certainly sounds fishy on second reading.
The real difference is, these things are not broadcast on a day-to-day basis. That is why we needed then, and now, to have some faith in our president, and whose he trusts to take care of the corruption that took place during the Clinton years.
This is, indeed, good news, and no "reversal"; just a leak of what has been happening for the last year, but quietly.
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