Business Brisk for Deaver’s Rummage Sale

Hundreds of people pawed through former White House aide Michael K. Deaver’s empty trappings of power Friday at an office sale held to defray more than $1 million in legal costs from a court fight that resulted in his perjury conviction.

“Not your typical garage sale, huh?” said a smiling saleswoman as $100,000 worth of Deaver’s office furnishings were put on the block at the abandoned headquarters of his lobbying firm in this Washington suburb.

In the first hour of the three-day sale, business executives and curiosity-seekers snapped up about $25,000 worth of items, from a $15 set of highball glasses to a hand-painted Chinese screen with a $3,500 price tag.

Unsold during the early hours was the biggest-ticket item at the sale--a handmade 19th-Century English partner’s desk that Deaver bought on one of his overseas business trips. The asking price was $20,000. Other antiques included two framed original Audubon prints selling for $2,750 each.

Office Odds and Ends

There were several file drawers full of pencils, paper clips, scissors, erasers and memo pads, going for $15 apiece, a couple of $6 plastic trash baskets and an $85 automatic check-writing machine with a counter indicating that Deaver had written 14,662 checks.

The only hint of Deaver’s once-powerful Washington lobbying contacts was a coffee mug embossed with a gold seal of the U.S. Senate. It rested unclaimed, waiting for a souvenir hunter willing to part with $4.

Deaver, a confidant and adviser to President Reagan, quit as White House deputy chief of staff in May, 1985, to form a lobbying firm. He was convicted last Dec. 16 in U.S. District Court in Washington on three counts of lying to a federal grand jury and a House Ene1919383840investigating allegations of possible ethics law violations.