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FDNY Statue Donor Tied to Clintons & DNC
Jan. 15, 2002
Bankroller of Bogus Firefighter Statue Tied to Clintons
The wealthy New York City developer who put up $180,000 for a politically correct statue based on the photo "Flag Raising at Ground Zero" is a heavy Democratic Party donor who spent the night at the White House as a guest of Bill and Hillary Clinton and who was considered a shoe-in for a top White House post early in the Clinton administration.
Bruce Ratner, the CEO of Forest City Ratner Enterprises who decided to replace two of the three white firefighters captured in a world-famous photo of the flag raising with a more racially diverse duo, spent the night at the White House with his wife, Julie, sometime in 1996. The Clintons have never released the precise dates of their notorious sleep-overs.
According to Federal Election Commission records, by that time the Ratner family had already donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Clintons, the Democratic Party and various other Democrats around the country.
FEC Records also show that Mrs. Ratner and another family member contributed at least $2,000 to Mrs. Clinton's New York Senate campaign.
Ratner was slated to play a key role in party fundraising in the last presidential race, with the New York Post reporting three months before the election that the party's "A-list" contributors "include Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein, international financier Alan Patricoff, Red Apple supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis, Wall Street moguls Bruce Ratner and Stan Shuman, and Denise Rich, ex-wife of fugitive financier Marc Rich."
A longtime Clinton admirer going back to the earliest days of his administration, Ratner participated in the ex-president's pre-inaugural economic summits and gave them rave reviews.
"It's been really excellent, remarkable," he told the Cleveland Plain Dealer after one December 1992 event, adding that he was "particularly impressed by Clinton's breadth of economic knowledge and by the wide variety of people at the summit."
Ratner was apparently so close to Clinton that he was considered a shoe-in for a White House appointment in 1993.
"Well-known New Yorkers have been giving Mr. Clinton behind-the-scenes advice and would probably be offered a job if they wanted one," reported Crane's New York Business just weeks before the 1992 election. "They include Paul A. Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, real estate mogul Bruce Ratner and John Brademas, former president of New York University. Mr. Brademas is seen as a possible secretary of education."
Ratner is at the center of the statue controversy that continues to swirl since NewsMax.com broke the story last Tuesday that rank-and-file FDNY members are outraged over his plan to present a distorted version of the flag raising.
The FDNY leases its headquarters from Ratner's company at his MetroTech Center in Brooklyn, where the politically correct statue is slated to be displayed after it is cast in bronze.
Ratner's sister Ellen, a Fox News Channel commentator and columnist who has also made substantial contributions to Democrats, said Monday night that her brother would not change his plans to quota-ize the statue.
"I think this was a decision of the New York Fire Department and my brother, and I think they're not going to give," she told FNC. "I think that they feel this is a correct position for them."
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