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.
BINGO!!
Fraid not, these people will never get what they deserve, IMO prison for life.
The American sheeple forget about these things way to soon for anything to happen. I mean hell, she WAS elected to the Senate by the sheeple of New York. Do you REALLY think anything will happen?
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord to protect the FREEP.
And during the night,
with all my might,
I wish my dreams come true:
that Hitlery's deeds come to light,
and she be mocked and flogged 'till blue.
We can be sure it wasn't in the RIGHT wing.
From your lips to G_ds ears
If this is true, I want that Arkansas trash prosecuted. There has to be something for which our belaboured country can get restitution.
People finally get it. Leave it alone.
There are many people who one simply doesn't play hardball with and I would say either you have the ability or you don't get in the game with Bush. In this case nothing was ever said about the White House scandal, yet if one recalls many days were spent analyzing the scene.
Here we are more than a year later and the Rats are tied-up in both a failing upcoming election as well as a biased probe in which they have no juristiction, the public is on Bush's side - they believe him, and he comes out of the sky with the scandal probe.
He he. It is ALWAYS nice to play nice first, I disagree with ol geezerette!! LOL Of course, what they did could be considered pranks...GW gave um the benefit of the doubt here, demonstrating he would not return dirt for dirt...but the dems could not accept the gift, and called the pranks a big fat LIE. ooooops. That attack by the dems sorta, kinda helped unlock the ammo door, and now that other nefarious and nasty barbs are a coming strongly from the left, well, golly, I guess it is time to arm and test the waters.
Heck.....the pranks are only the begining....what do you want to bet a whole bunch of dedicated, long standing WH employees have marked and noted in detail what was trashed, what was TAKEN and what was returned (and its condition upon return) and are dying, and I mean dying, for the Bush administration to nail the filth that vacated with the clintons. Time will tell. Rather, the next move from the dems will tell. Methinks things are locked and loaded and that even Walker is going to suffer the consequences of being a partisan when such actions impact our national treasures.
Did you know that the clintons took one of the most famous paintings in the WH along with them....it has been returned....but to think that that trailer trash would do such a thing is simply outrageous.
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