By , ,
Published December 23, 2015
Tuesday's news that a truck was stolen in Virginia from a hotel parking lot with equipment that included the presidential seal, podium and teleprompter got AEHQ wondering if this type of thing has happened before.
NBC12 in Richmond first reported the vehicle that was getting in place ahead of President Obama's visit to the commonwealth, disappeared from a Marriott Monday, but was later recovered.
It seems this particular incident - a hotel heist where a whole truck and with items inside being stolen - was is pretty rare. There have been some instances where thieves nabbed presidential documents and souvenirs, but those mostly were taken from the White House building itself or in the D.C. area.
Take for example, thousands of precious items - ranging from doodles to pens he signed treaties with taken by President John F. Kennedy's secretary after his death. Evelyn Lincoln reportedly took the items, and even sold some of them, but eventually gave a stash of them to Kennedy Library, according to the National Archives.
She apparently started the practice back when he was a senator, grabbing extra papers that were discarded. A former Secret Service agent in the 1980s was also sentenced to three years in a minimum-security prison for a taking more than $5,000 in stolen White House souvenirs, as reported by the Washington Post in 1984.
William Golding allegedly took items from White House offices and then turned them for a profit. Also back in 1995, the Washington Post reported some documents pertaining to a Waco congressional hearing were taken from an administration aide's car in D.C. It was dubbed more of a routine car break-in than some kind of covert operation.
It was dubbed more of a routine car break-in than some kind of covert operation.
Current White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said they weren't too worried about the items inside the truck in Virginia from a security standpoint.
Obama is on a three-day bus tour through North Carolina and Virginia to tout his jobs bill. So far no word on individuals responsible for the Virginia incident, or if any items have ended up on e-Bay.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/stolen-white-house-stuff-a-brief-history