Cheney Inquiry Led to Gore Bust
NewsMax.com 06/14/02 Carl Limbacher
Former Vice President Al Gore did not return a bust of Abraham Lincoln that he had "inadvertently" taken from the White House until Vice President Dick Cheney inquired about the missing item six months after taking office, a General Accounting Office report on the incident reveals.
The GAO report on the episode was part of the investigation into allegations that Clinton-Gore staff vandalized the White House before turning it over to the Bush administration on Jan. 20, 2001.
The investigation concluded that the former vice president kept the priceless White House sculpture until July 2001, when he was challenged by an unnamed Cheney counsel.
The GAO said:
"Regarding a Lincoln bust that two EOP staff told us was missing, but was subsequently returned, a former employee who also worked in the former vice president's transition office provided us with a copy of a July 6, 2001, letter that he received from the counsel to Vice President Cheney asking about the missing item.
"The former employee said that, after receiving the letter, he located the bust at former Vice President Gore's personal residence and that he returned it to the White House on July 11, 2001.
"The former employee also provided us with a July 11, 2001, letter to the counsel to the vice president, in which he wrote that 'it appears that the bust was inadvertently packed with the personal effects of Vice President Gore.' The former counsel to the former vice president told us that Mr. Gore did not pack his own items in his office at the end of the administration," the GAO concluded.
To read the GAO report on Gore's Lincoln bust, go to: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02360.pdf ("Allegations of Damage During the 2001 Presidential Transition," page 47.)
HENCH adds: The scumbag wanted to be President? He should be in jail.
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