The Economics Section - Page A4
December 16, 1996 The Clinton 'No Tell Motel'is a $180 Million Winner!
by William Heartstone, The Daily Republican Newspaper
WASHINGTON BUREAU - President Clinton's press secretary told reporters that the Lincoln Bedroom is a special way of saying `Thank you for services rendered'all at the expense of American taxpayers. No reimbursements have been forthcoming from either the president nor the first lady. The Clinton re-election Committee has not paid for the costs to the taxpayers that now is approaching $1 Billion.
When you add up all the special thanks and related perks sold by the president and the first lady since January 1993, they gave away a lot more than they got in return. Although the cost of the goods and services used to American taxpayers that were used by the White House to induce illegal contributions is nearly $1 Billion the first couple sold themselves too cheaply. Thy only took in about $180 million dollars in exchange for $1 Billion worth of taxpayer's property.
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette broke the story on Monday after confirmation of the guest registry of the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and correlated it with the Democrat party National Committee list of cash donors.
Brian Lamb on C-SPAN Monday morning read a portion of the Arkansas newspaper story in which it was reported that as Wall Street wheeler-dealer Steven Rattner and his wife checked out of the White House on July 27, 1995 after a night in the Lincoln Bedroom, a lawyer from Philadelphia, Leonard Barrack and his wife arrived with their suitcases.
Directly across the hall in the White House Queens Bedroom Boston developer Alan M. Levanthal and his wife signed-in for an overnight quickie. After checking-in, all three couples went to the White House East Room and were treated to a full-course state dinner.
The charge made by president Clinton for the use of the White house bedrooms for the night, including maid service, was $400,000 paid to the president's re-election campaign. The hot-sheets routine was repeated hundreds of times.
Many overnight quickies were foreign business interests and not American citizens. Such foreign contributions were improper, illegal, and are now the source of the controversy over Democratic money raising. The president has been attempting to shift public attention away from his 'nocturnal' money machine.
The no-tell-motel guest list has America and our allies shaking their heads in disbelief.
The president and the first lady operated the 'no-tell-motel' inside their White House residence as only one part of the re-election money getting scheme of presidential involvement as Democratic Party leaders made full use of White House to get cash to cover the president's fund-raising goals.
Apparently president Clinton has even hosted coffee klatches for large political contributors who would come to the White House every month in 1996.
Just how much intimacy could you buy from the president and the first lady depended upon the size of the political contribution. For a meager $10,000 you can be included in a roomful of other people and the president. For a hefty $100,000 you can buy a seat at the White House dinner table with the president. Dinner is definitely a popular feat, and you should expect to be jammed-in with thirty other people.
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported on Monday that a once a California man stayed overnight with his son in the Lincoln Bedroom. During the stay they began watching a videotape about the White House.
About midnight,while still watching the tape, president Clinton came to the bedroom and knocked on the door. Clinton was fully dressed in a tuxedo. He commented on the video and than invited them to take a personally guided tour. How president Clinton knew that they were awake and watching the White House Tour video has yet to be explained by the White House.
Others overnighters have been invited on golf outings, appointed to honorary commissions or given podium passes to the Democratic convention.
For example, a New Jersey politician, Raymond Lesniak, paid $1.5 million to president Clinton's re-election and got his American Dreama ride on Air Force One to see the Polish-born Pope John Paul II at Newark Airport in New Jersey.
The president's receipts from soft money contributors paid to the Campaign show the success of the no-tell-motel conduct. The size of individual soft-money donations is not limited, but the Democrat Party is supposed to use the money only for party-building activities.
It is apparent that the president's Committee has not fully complied with the law. After the president's fund raising activities came to light in stories played by the Daily Republican in October and November, the president's Committee began refunding millions of dollars of such contributions.
In the past two years, the president's Committee collected $85 million in soft money. On September 10, 1995, White House aide Harold Ickes and the president's Committee chairman Donald L. Fowler worked-out a plan with the president calling for spending $12 million on political propaganda ads over a 10-week run.
The ads would accuse Republicans of being extreme. This would cost $12 million. Clinton and Gore agreed to become personally involved with getting money through selling access to the White House bedrooms and appearing at seven Committee fund-raising events.
Within three months of starting the propaganda campaign against Republicans, the Clinton's polls had only slightly improved. Clinton and Gore decided to commit themselves and their wives to no-tell-motel fund-raising events.
The no-tell-motelstrategy rested on the well-tested notion that people of great wealth still can be impressed with the personal power of the Office of the President. Wealthy Democrat Party contributors would pay for access to the president and first lady's White House residence bedrooms.
President Clinton was eager to accommodate fund-raisers' requests, running from one banquet hall to a living room in virtually every large city. Public records confirm that he attended 90 fund-raisers in 1996. In the month before elections, he participated in at least twenty-three such events alone.
He managed to do this by attending as many a three back-to-back dinners on some nights in search of major contributions, followed by a larger late-night event at $100-a-head, followed by renting out the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House, and midnight tours of its darker recesses.
One highly priced Clinton perk, was an all-expenses-paid trip with the president to the Middle East. President Clinton sold more than a 12 of these to major Jewish contributors in a group of 60 Americans who were permitted to accompany the president at the signing of the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty in the Negev Desert in October 1994. He also sold six more trips to contributors to travel with him to Israel for the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995.