COMPLETE STATIC READING EDITION
The “trashed White House” and the furniture
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It happened, on a smaller scale than the first stories.
The GAO found that “damage, theft, vandalism, and pranks occurred” during the 2001 transition. Twenty-six staff said they saw 30 to 64 keyboards with missing or damaged “W” keys; two former Clinton staff saw three or four. The White House bought 62 keyboards for $4,850. GAO could not determine how many were deliberately damaged. [1]
Former Clinton staff told GAO that the trash was normal for a move, that some furniture was broken before, and that many reports were not vandalism. [1]
What we can’t tell you. Documentation was thin, so GAO could not price the damage.
The federal audit behind the “missing W keys” story, with both the incoming staff’s reports and former staff’s responses.
They took $190,000 of gifts and returned or paid for much of it.
After criticism for taking $190,000 in china, flatware, rugs, sofas and other gifts, the Clintons agreed to pay for $86,000 worth and to send back $28,000 of household goods that may have been meant as gifts to the White House, not to them. [1]
What we can’t tell you. Which items were gifts to the family and which to the house was disputed item by item.
Contemporaneous report on the returned furnishings.
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