Several veterans of tense transitions weighed in on the oft-told tale of the 2000-01 transition during which departing Clinton staffers were reported to have removed the “W” keys from the White House keyboards being inherited by employees of George W. Bush. When she moved in on Jan. 20, McBride said, she recalled no sabotaged keyboards but did encounter some messy offices and the empty hallways filled with trash and boxes from the departing employees. Sharon Fawcett, the retired assistant archivist for presidential libraries at the National Archives, told later investigators she said couldn’t account for any missing W keys, but could account for missing hard drives—which were taken by her agency according to records law.

Kumar said the keyboard story appeared to be “overblown,” with a Government Accountability Office probe having found some problems but “nothing organized.” Problems included a few broken pieces of furniture and strewn pizza boxes that a janitor failed to remove.