Hours of squabbling over who was responsible for spending $61,000 to install curtains in United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley’s government-owned New York City condominium ended Friday afternoon when The New York Times acknowledged that the furnishings were ordered during the Obama administration.
The Times reported that a total of $52,701 was spent in 2017 on the drapery project to cover a sweeping panorama of windows in the nearly 6,000-square-foot penthouse, including the machinery to open and close them with a remote control.
Of that, $29,900 paid for the curtains and another $22,801 covered the motors and installation, according to government contracts.
DailyMail.com identified an additional $8,300 contract award for rewiring the residence to accommodate the contraptions, pushing the total above $61,000.
A United Nations source told CNN that the Obama administration decided how to outfit the residence ‘well before the election in 2016,’ and that the government bought it unfurnished.
A designer from the State Department’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations ‘chose and ordered the curtains shortly thereafter (summer 2016),’ the source added.
The Times originally ran its story with the headline: ‘Nikki Haley’s View of New York Is Priceless. Her Curtains? $52,701.’
By midafternoon it was changed to read: ‘State Department Spent $52,701 on Curtains for Residence of U.N. Envoy.’
Editors made 36 separate changes to the article, according to a Microsoft Word comparison, including deleting a reference to ‘Ms. Haley’s curtains.’
The newspaper’s editors explained in a note that the original story and headline ‘created an unfair impression about who was responsible for the purchase in question.’
‘While Nikki R. Haley is the current ambassador to the United Nations, the decision on leasing the ambassador’s residence and purchasing the curtains was made during the Obama administration, according to current and former officials. The article should not have focused on Ms. Haley, nor should a picture of her have been used.’
The curtains were installed sometime between March and August of 2017, while Haley was in charge of the U.S. mission to the UN.
Several news outlets emphasized that the State Department actually wrote checks to the vendor, DFB Sales of Long Island City, New York, in March and April of that year.
That coincided with a hiring freeze and budget cuts across the State Department, ordered by then-Secretary Rex Tillerson.
But a Haley spokesman insisted the Obama administration had ordered the curtains and the equipment to operate them when it relocated the ambassador’s residence from the Waldorf Astoria hotel, where it had traditionally been located.
The shift was made due to security concerns after a new ownership group led by a Chinese insurance company bought the storied building. Haley is the first ambassador to live at the new location.
The asking price for rent was $58,000 per month, according to a real estate listing.
It includes 7 bedrooms, including two for housekeepers and a pair of master suites.
But the dramatic views of New York City’s skyline are the main selling point for the property that Haley found out she was inheriting after she got the job.