The newspaper of record needs to check the record. Amy Chozick’s long piece on the Clintons’ finances and various homes (“Stress Over Family Finances Propelled Hillary Clinton Into Corporate World”) recounts the couple’s earnings over the years and nods to some of the controversies, including Hillary’s fabulously lucky debut as a commodities trader. But when you’re the newspaper of record, you ought to get the facts straight. Here are the final paragraphs:
When the Clintons left the White House in 2000 — the first time they were without the safety net of public office in 18 years — they owed $5 million in legal fees and once again felt financial uncertainty. In 2014, Mrs. Clinton described her family’s situation at the time in words that have bedeviled her candidacy: “Dead broke.”
Once again, the Clintons needed a house, and once again they turned to the help of a wealthy friend. This time it was Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton campaign fund-raiser, who offered to guarantee the mortgage on the home they would move into after leaving the White House.
But this time, the home — a $1.7 million, 11-room Dutch Colonial in the tony suburb of Chappaqua, N.Y. — was not one of the smallest houses on the block. Mrs. Clinton did not have to call the Roto-Rooter every time the old pipes clogged, or run to a neighbor’s house to borrow milk and eggs, as she had done in the house on Midland Street.
And now it was Mrs. Clinton, eyeing a Senate seat from New York, who left her husband at home as she hit the road, crisscrossing the state for her campaign.
Whoops. Mrs. Clinton ran for and won her Senate seat in 2000. So when they left the White House in 2001, she was about to be sworn in and would begin receiving the $145,100 per year Senators earned at that time. So much for being “dead broke” — an absurd claim in any case since post presidencies have become quite remunerative in the modern age, even for non-crooks. Finally, Hillary Clinton did not begin her campaign for Senator after settling into the Chappaqua house. She had already been elected.
New York Times Error