The Clintons were/are thieves:
Report: Clinton Gifts Total $400G
Tue Feb 12, 6:52 PM ET
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - President Clinton (news - web sites) left office with more than $400,000 in gifts, including $75,000 in china, crystal and furniture received in his last weeks in office, according to a congressional report.
Rep. Doug Ose (news), R-Calif., said Tuesday that some items were undervalued, others were not disclosed and some were labeled missing or lost so the true value of all the gifts may never be determined.
"The current system is broken and needs to be fixed," he said. Ose spoke at a hearing intended to boost support for his bill to give the National Archives responsibility for overseeing presidential gifts, instead of the six agencies that now are involved.
Controversy over presidential gifts arose last year when the Clintons disclosed they had received $190,027 in the president's final year in office, but did not specify the dates on which gifts were received....
...Ose also took aim at the more than $75,000 in china, crystal and furniture that arrived at the White House in December 2000 alone, after Hillary Rodham Clinton (news - web sites)'s election to the Senate but before she was covered by the Senate's strict limits on gifts. The gifts were received at a time when the Clintons were looking to furnish two newly purchased homes, one each in Washington and Chappaqua, N.Y.
Ose called the timing "disturbing at best."
The Clintons took with them $360,000 worth of large gifts when they left the White House in January 2001, Ose said. They also left with additional gifts worth at least $40,000 that were not disclosed, were undervalued or were too small to trigger public disclosure.
Among the undervalued gifts was an original land grant signed by President John Quincy Adams in 1826, Ose said. The White House valued it at $240; a local appraiser said such items typically cost $500 to $600.
Dozens of gifts were labeled "lost" or "misplaced" in the records investigators examined, including a $4,200 18-karat gold saxophone pin and a $1,200 rug from Pakistan.
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