NewsMax.com
Friday, Jan. 26, 2001

The cost of cleaning up the effects of the deliberate vandalism caused by Clinton and Gore White House staffers could exceed $250,000, according to an official of the General Services Administration (GSA).

The American Spectator quoted an inspector who was called in to assess the vandalism as saying that several executive desks were damaged to the point that they must be replaced, and several more offices must be repainted because of graffiti. Entire computer keyboards will have to be replaced because the damage to them is more extensive than simply missing keys.

'The Place Was a Pigsty'

"The place was a pigsty," a Bush White House staffer told the Spectator. "The Gore and Clinton people didn't 'clean out' the place because there was nothing clean about what they did before they left."

The vandals can expect to pay for the damage. GSA officials say their agency will go after the offenders for reimbursement for some of the cleanup expenses. And the GSA knows who some of them are because they are aware of who inhabited the vandalized offices in the waning days of the Clinton administration and can go after them for the damage they caused.

Initial reports were confined to stories about the removal of the "W" keys from White House computer keyboards. The Spectator reports that "Wednesday two former staffers, one of whom worked in Hillary Clinton's office, were spotted near Dupont Circle laughing and giggling about the mess their former colleagues left behind."

"I wish someone had told me about it," the Spectator reports that one ex-Clinton aide said. "The other agreed: ‘I would have gone through all 12 computers in our office. All I did was leave a nasty cartoon for the Bush people to find, and I thought I was being funny. But I didn't know about the W's.' "

Although some of the media treated the missing "W" keys as a joke, the damage was extensive, and investigators say it was the result of a carefully organized campaign of vandalism unlike anything ever seen in the aftermath of a presidential transition.

"There are dozens, if not hundreds, of keyboards with these missing keys," a Bush aide has been quoted as saying. "In some cases the 'W' is marked out, but the most prevalent example is the key being removed. In some cases the 'W' keys have been taped on top of the doorways, which are 12 feet tall. In other cases, they were glued on with Superglue, right way up or upside down."

The vandalism occurred in "any number" of different offices, the aide said. "It has the technical and computer support people very busy. They already have quite a lot to do. I don't believe they expected to be coping with this as well."

Obscene Greetings

According to British news reports, in addition to the damage to the White House and Old Executive Office Building, telephone lines were severed and voice-mail messages were changed to obscene remarks and lewd greetings. Other phone lines were misdirected to the wrong extensions, desks were overturned, and trash was strewn around the premises.

Other vandalism included filing cabinets shut with superglue, pornographic photos left in computer printers along with obscenities, and filthy graffiti scrawled on at least one hallway wall. A Bush aide has been assigned to investigate the vandalism, and videos of the ransacked quarters and damaged equipment are being taken and interviews taped with key White House people.

Bush press spokesman Ari Fleischer confirmed Thursday morning that the Bush White House was reviewing reports of vandalism by departing Clinton-Gore staffers but said no legal action would be taken.

According to Reuters news agency, Fleischer would not confirm the extent of the vandalism, saying Bush wanted to change the political tone to a positive one.

"Whether things were done that were perhaps less gracious than should have been, it is not going to be what President Bush focuses on, nor will it be what his staff focuses on. Whatever may have been done, we are going to just put our heads down and look ahead,'' he said.

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