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Clinton Gift Flap Encourages Feds to Want Donors to Spell Out Intent
Tuesday, June 19, 2001
WASHINGTON — The flap over gifts the Clintons took with them from the White House has prompted the National Park Service to tighten its policy for accepting donations.
Jim McDaniel, the service's White House liaison, said Tuesday the agency will require a letter from now on that specifically outlines the donor's intent for the gift and whether it is being donated to an agency or a specific individual.
"In the past we've relied on verbal directions, ... and there has been confusion," McDaniel said. "It's going to have to be in writing."
Former President Clinton and the first lady, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, took strong criticism for taking $190,000 worth of china, flatware, rugs, televisions, sofas and other gifts with them when they left the White House.
The Clintons returned 19 items worth $28,000 to the government in February after some donors said their gifts were for the White House, not the former first family. The items were shipped from the Clintons' home in Chappaqua, N.Y., to a government storage warehouse in Washington's Maryland suburbs.
On Tuesday, McDaniel said the Clintons can have three of those gifts back after an exhaustive records check determined they were indeed personal gifts. They are an easy chair and an ottoman from New York furniture maker Steve Mittman, and the painting "Constitution" by Thomas McKnight.
A fourth gift also could be returned. McDaniel said painter Will Barnet had been contacted by certified mail to determine whether his painting "Summer" was intended for the White House or the Clintons.
All of the other 15 gifts the Clintons returned were meant for the White House and will be kept by the government, McDaniel said.
The park service also is contacting dozens of donors who contributed items during the 1993 White House redecoration by Arkansas designer Kaki Hockersmith to ensure that all those items reached their intended destination, McDaniel said.
Speaking for the Clintons, the former president's spokeswoman, Julia Payne, said nothing was removed from the White House without approval in the first place.
"It's encouraging that the bookkeeping process is being cleared up," she said.
JLA |
