Presidential Transitions: 2000
The transition between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush that took place in 2000 was marred by damage, vandalism, pranks and accusations of theft. The White House General Accounting Office estimated the cost of pranks played by the outgoing Clinton staff at between thirteen and fourteen thousand dollars. Press secretary Ari Fleischer produced a list of vandalism including removal of the W key from keyboards. That item along was said to cost about $4,875.
Glue was smeared on desk drawers. Messages disparaging President Bush were left on signs and in telephone voice mail. A few of the messages used profane or obscene language. A presidential seal that was 12 inches in diameter was stolen from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, on Jan. 19, 2001. Graffiti was written on the walls of a stall in the men's room in the White House about President Bush that was derogatory and obscene. A sticker left on a filing cabinet read "Jail to the thief", implying that Bush had stolen the 2000 election. Georgia Representative Bob Barr, a Republican who had been one of President Clinton's harshest critics, told the New York Times, "the Clinton administration treated the White House worse than college freshmen checking out of their dorm rooms."
Bill and Hillary Clinton were also accused of keeping gifts that were meant for the White House. The Clintons denied the accusations, but agreed to pay over $85,000. They said that the payment was made "to eliminate even the slightest question" of impropriety. Those gifts included a $7,375 couch and coffee table set, from the ex-wife of financier Marc Rich. Clinton had issued a presidential pardon to Rich in the final hours of his presidency.
Federal regulations strictly limit gifts for nearly every member of the executive branch, but exceptions include the president and vice president. They may accept gifts, due to the needs of protocol and etiquette. The president must report gifts over a certain value (during most of the Clinton years, that value was $250, today it is $350.) When Bill Clinton completed his term, he submitted a final disclosure form that listed roughly $190,000 in gifts. Reporters from the Washington Post questioned this list. Movie star Sylvester Stallone gave Clinton a pair of boxing gloves, filmmaker Steven Spielberg sent him china and Steve Mittman from New York gave him two sofas, an easy chair and ottoman worth $19,900. But Mittman and 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). The House Committee on Government Reform looked into the matter. They were skeptical about the estimated value of $240 for a John Quincy Adams-signed original land grant from 1826. There was also a large Coach leather travel bag, which the White House estimated at $200 but which investigators found priced at between $599-700, and a Tiffany necklace valued at $150 but that Tiffany's valued at $450 to $1,000.
The committee was also critical about requests that Clinton had made for gifts. They said that it was fine under the law to accept someone’s generosity, but not to tell them what you want. About $38,000 worth of goods were given to Hillary Clinton in December 2000, after she won her Senate race in New York, but before she took office. She had created a gift registry at Borsheim’s Fine Jewelry and Gifts. This yielded 16 rimmed soup bowls worth $2,352 and a soup tureen worth $1,365, among other items. Ultimately, the Clintons kept 227 of 14,770 gifts given over the eight years.
The bad blood and intense resentment that the outgoing staff had for its successors was the result of the closest election in history since 1876. When the election returns came in on November 7, Bush was declared the winner in 29 states, including Florida. But the closeness of the Florida outcome led to a recount of ballots. The initial recount also showed Bush as the winner of the state, but the outcome was tied up in courts for a month before it reached the U.S. Supreme Court. On December 9, in the controversial Bush v. Gore ruling, the Court reversed a Florida Supreme Court decision ordering a third count, and stopped an ordered statewide hand recount based on the argument that the use of different standards among Florida's counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The machine recount showed that Bush had won the Florida vote by a margin of 537 votes out of six million cast. Although he received 543,895 fewer individual votes than Gore nationwide, Bush won the election, receiving 271 electoral votes to Gore's 266. (Gore had actually won victories in states whose electoral votes totaled 267, but one of Gore's pledged electors abstained, rendering the official tally at 266).
Bush was the first President to win a presidential election with fewer national votes than another candidate since Benjamin Harrison in 1888. On January 6, 2001, a joint session of Congress met to certify the electoral vote. Twenty members of the House of Representatives, most of them Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus, filed objections to the electoral votes of Florida. However, pursuant to the Electoral Count Act of 1887, any such objection had to be sponsored by both a representative and a senator. No senator would co-sponsor these objections, deferring to the Supreme Court's ruling. Al Gore, who presided in his capacity as President of the Senate, ruled each of these objections out of order. Subsequently, the joint session of Congress certified the electoral votes from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Bush took the oath of office on January 20, 2001.
The first independent recount was conducted by the Miami Herald and USA Today. The commission found that under most recount scenarios, Bush would have won the election. Gore would have won using only the most generous standard.
Thousands of demonstrators protested at Bush's inaugural ceremonies in Washington on January 20, 2001. Four protesters were arrested and Bush's limousine was hit by a tennis ball and an egg thrown from the crowd during the inaugural parade. This did not deter the incoming President, who got out of his limousine and walked the last block of the parade, holding hands with his wife Laura. In his inauguration address President Bush pledged to "work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity".