![]() ![]() “I wouldn’t be surprised if Bender owns other parts of Justice. I’m sure he doesn’t know what Justice owns or doesn’t own,” she said. None of those buildings come across Ed’s desk. Neither she nor her husband knew anything about the lease at the time it was renewed, she said. “Well, I didn’t know anything about that.” “They sold it?” she asked in the interview. Thirteen days later, the partnership sold the building, including its lease as an asset, for a $22.7-million profit over two years of ownership. Less than 1 1/2 years after she went on the payroll, the Justice Department renewed a 10-year, $50-million lease of a run-down office building that had been acquired by a Bender real estate partnership in 1985. “He (Wallach) may well have approached them,” she said. Reports surfaced that the job came about as a result of an inquiry to the Bender Foundation by Wallach. Her salary comes from a grant donated to the MS Society by the Bender Foundation, a tax-exempt philanthropic organization headed by the family of real estate developer Howard S. 1, 1986, as head of a program aimed at helping the disabled find jobs. Showing anger at times, and laughing heartily at other moments, she talked about their ordeal while sitting in her small office at the Multiple Sclerosis Society, where she performs a job that generated enough controversy to draw the attention of the special prosecutor.Īfter working at the organization as a volunteer for five years, she began drawing a $40,000-a-year salary on Jan. “It was very insensitive to do to a teen-ager,” said Ursula Meese, 56. Perhaps hardest hit by the public ordeal was their daughter, Dana, who in 1983, transferred from a private high school to a public school after her teacher led a lively class discussion about a column by political satirist Art Buchwald ridiculing Meese’s statement that there should be no hungry people in America. The Meeses, she added, are “angry, yeah, but embarrassed? No.” People say, ‘How in the world could you stand it?’ You know, we don’t go home and wring our hands and rant and rave. The Meeses did “nothing illegal, immoral or ethically wrong. I mean, how can you do that? You’re never half-pregnant. McKay’s later statement that Meese had probably violated criminal law struck her as “ludicrous. McKay ended without any indictments, even though McKay later said he thought Meese “probably violated criminal law” on four occasions. The 14-month investigation of Meese by independent counsel James C. Franklyn Chinn, Meese’s former financial consultant. Wallach, who used to meet weekly with Meese and advise him on issues big and small, professional and personal, was indicted in December on charges that he and others conspired to extract illegal payments from Wedtech for the purpose of lobbying Meese and other government officials. The woman who has donned a bunny suit for the White House Easter egg roll fits just as easily in a figurative suit of armor.Īt the time of his wife’s grand-jury appearance, Edwin Meese was being investigated for income tax problems, and for actions he may have taken to help Wallach in deals involving Wedtech Corp., a now-defunct defense contractor, and a proposed $1-billion Iraqi pipeline project. But her no-holds-barred defense of the ruinous Meese family reputation is anything but a joke. Her response provoked laughter from the grand jury, she recalled. When they think they’ve cornered you, come out with all guns blazing. ![]()
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