OFF TOPIC
Hey, FL, JohnM did it once, I'm doing it simply to keep the score even. Won't do it again. Promise. At least mine is marked "OT".
Hillary gives new meaning to the phrase "bag lady". Or is it "carpet bagger"? Perhaps the bags were where the missing Rose Law Firm billing records were kept. Wonder what was inside?
Too much,
What a pair of sleazy crooks.
nypost.com
HILLARY'S BAGS SURFACE
By DICK MORRIS
October 11, 2002 -- FOUND! The four Judith Leiber bags Hillary Clinton denied having every received. Yesterday, the House Government Reform Subcommittee released a list of gfts worth over $1 million that were received by Bill and Hillary Clinton in the White House that were never disclosed. The list contradicts statements made by the former first lady and current senator.
In this column, on Feb. 11, 2001, I wrote that Hillary had received many undisclosed gifts, including some from "Judith Leiber, designer of expensive and easily recognizable evening bags." I wrote that Hillary had received three or four of these valuable creations, worth "about $10,000," but that the bags "do not appear on any of the disclosure forms in the public record." The article was accompanied by a picture of the former first lady carrying a Socks the Cat evening bag by Leiber that retails for more than $3,300.
Outraged, Hillary denounced the story as "false" and criticized me for "not bothering" to check the facts. She claimed to have received only two bags - one given to her before the first inauguration in 1993, which did not have to be disclosed, and another which she claimed to have reported on her 1994 disclosure form.
Hillary opined at the time, "It's really regrettable that the people writing and publishing the story didn't call to get the facts, because there would have been no story. I guess that's why they didn't call and it is a very unfortunate commentary on the way these things are handled."
Well, the missing bags have finally surfaced in the documents of the House subcommittee. Hillary got four bags while serving as First Lady after all, and their combined worth is about $9,000. They are:
* a "small beaded Leiber handbag" worth $3,555 on 11/7/96;
* a "metal Leiber purse with comb, mirror & coin purse" worth $3,000 on 7/2/96;
* a "beaded handbag" worth $1,200 on 7/5/94;
* a "black satin" handbag, worth $925, on 1/11/94.
Hillary received the bags, did not list them on any disclosure forms and denied receiving them when challenged by the Post story. She even used them, as published photos have shown.
Since the bags were given to the National Archives at the end of her husband's term and the archives will turn them over to the Clinton Library, she can use them again anytime she wants to.
The bags are only a part of how Clinton passed the bag for gifts from cronies. The list of donors looks like a repertory of the greatest hits of the Clinton scandals.
Gift-givers included the Chinagate trio of James Riady, Charlie Tree and Johnnie Chung. Pardon supplicant Bill Fugazy made an appearance. Denise Rich's list of gifts goes on for pages.
Bernard Schwartz of Lorel - alleged to have given key U.S. military technology to China - was a donor and, in anticipation of the scandals of the future, so was the Enron executive committee.
Hillary Rodham Clinton owes The Post an apology. But don't hold your breath |
