Dear Diary! Reports Claim That Mary Lincoln Took Bribes, Padded Expenses

Beginning of article

Newly released diary entries from a longtime associate of Abraham Lincoln accuse Lincoln's wife of padding White House bills and charging taxpayers for personal expenses.

The entries also accuse Mary Todd Lincoln of accepting bribes to secure lucrative government appointments and of leaking the president's private papers to a reporter.

The entries are from the diary of Orville Hickman Browning, a longtime associate of Abraham Lincoln's who served in the U.S. Senate during the Civil War.

When the Browning diary was sold to the Illinois State Historical Library in 1921, the owner, Eliza Miller, a niece of Browning, stipulated that a handful of entries never …