This is the original news story provided on the Bel Air property:
January 28, 2001
Nancy Reagan: We Repaid Friends
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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:20 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former first lady Nancy Reagan said Sunday she and her husband repaid friends for a $2.5 million house purchased for them in California before they left the White House in 1989.
In an interview taped for airing on CNN's ``Larry King Live'' on Feb. 6, the former president's 90th birthday, Mrs. Reagan acknowledged that most people probably believe the house was a gift because it has been portrayed that way in recent news accounts about gifts former President Clinton and his wife took with them when he left office on Jan. 20.
But Mrs. Reagan said the house was always considered a loan and that the arrangement was made public at the time -- even before Ronald Reagan left office.
``We had never known that,'' King said.
``Well, at the time it was public,'' she replied.
``The gift was public, but I never knew,'' said King.
``That we repaid? Well, you know, some things are just left out of stories,'' Mrs. Reagan said.
``So it was always a loan?
``Always. Always. Our money was in a blind trust and we had to buy a house and we didn't know how much money we had, so the friends bought it and then we repaid them with interest.''
The group of friends who bought the house obtained an opinion in advance from the Office of Government Ethics saying the arrangement would not violate ethics standards or laws.
An Associated Press story on that opinion in April 1988, more than nine months before the Reagans left the White House, reported that the deal called for them to pay fair-market rent on the house under a three-year lease that gave them an option to buy. |
