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Clintons to Pay for Gifts Received in 2000
Former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will pay for nearly $86,000 worth of gifts they chose to keep last year, his office said Friday (Feb.2), seeking to remove the whiff of impropriety that clouded their exit from the White House.
The payback amounts to about half the value of the gifts Clinton and his wife reported they intended to keep when he left office on Jan. 20. An aide to Mrs. Clinton, the new Democratic senator from New York, said reimbursement was also an attempt to stem criticism that has surrounded her first weeks on Capitol Hill.
The aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, emphasized that both the former president and his wife would pay for the gifts.
Earlier Friday, Clinton announced that the government would be billed for only half the $600,000 annual rent on a Manhattan office. The aide said that, too, was intended to deflect criticism.
The gifts include $7,375 worth of furniture received from Denise Rich, the ex-wife of a fugitive financier pardoned by Clinton on his last day in office ¡ª a move that has prompted a congressional investigation.
The Clinton's would pay for $85,966 worth of gifts they say received in 2000. Clinton said other gifts were handed to the National Archives.
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