Tornado Alley (PROG)

[Hanibal]

Dude they took everything they could when they left the Whitehouse dead broke.

Jesus fking Christ. People still fall for right wing propaganda in 2019.



1) Lie #1 "Dead Broke"

A few weeks before they left the White House, the Clintons were able to muster a cash down payment of $855,000 and secure a $1.995 million mortgage. This hardly fits the common meaning of "dead broke."


https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jun/10/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-says-she-and-bill-were-dead-broke/

2) Lie #2 "Took everything they could"

When Bill Clinton completed his term, he submitted a final disclosure form that listed roughly $190,000 in gifts.

Clinton’s itemized list caught the eye of the Washington Post and provided plenty of fodder for the curious. People gave the president a notable quantity of golf clubs. Movie star Sylvester Stallone gave him a pair of boxing gloves. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg sent him china. And one Steve Mittman from New York gave him two sofas, an easy chair and ottoman worth $19,900.

The problem was, Mittman and a few others included on the list said they never intended their gifts to go to the Clintons. They thought they were donating to the White House itself as part a major remodeling project in 1993.

Within about two weeks of the publication of the Post article, public criticism escalated, and the Clintons announced that they would pay the government nearly $86,000 for items that were actually government property. A few days after that, they also returned about $48,000 worth of furniture (including the sofas, chair and ottoman from Mittman).

Add that up and the government got back $134,000 out of the $190,000 the Clinton’s had declared as gifts.

The viral image accuses the Clintons of theft. However, their public declaration of all the things they were taking makes it harder to call what they did "stealing."

"Calling the Clintons’ actions ‘stealing’ or ‘theft’ is hyperbolic," Clark said. "It’s hard to take that language seriously in this context."

Our ruling

A viral graphic said that Hillary Clinton was forced to return about $200,000 worth of furniture, artwork and china that she had stolen from the White House. The statement contains several inaccuracies.

The Clintons returned about $48,000 in furniture, and they paid the government about $86,000 for other items. Any way you count it, the $200,000 figure is too high.

According to top ethics lawyers, it’s at least debatable -- and at worst hyperbolic -- to say the Clintons "stole" the items.




https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/oct/01/viral-image/viral-image-wrongly-accuses-clinton-stealing/