Upon leaving office, Bill Clinton reported that he had retained $190,027 worth of gifts that he had received. The Washington Post reported this on Jan. 21, 2001 — a day after President George W. Bush gave his inaugural address.
On Feb. 5, 2001, the Post reported that some of those gifts — $28,000 worth — were intended for the White House, not for the Clintons personally, based on documents the newspaper reviewed and interviews it conducted with donors.
About a week later, the Washington Post reported that the Clintons returned the $28,000 worth of furnishings to the National Park Service. (The Post also reported that the Clintons days earlier had paid the government $86,000 for other items they received as gifts in his last year in office. We’ll get to that later.)...