The General Accounting Office, the investigative agency of Congress, had said it would look into the White House trashing if a member of Congress requested it.

Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga, did so immediately.

Barr filed a formal request with the GAO to begin an "immediate investigation" into the cost of the destruction, which included cut telephone lines, overturned desks, trashed offices, graffiti-sprayed walls, mutilated computer keyboards, glued-shut cabinets and closets and removal of labels on thousands of phones, rendering them inoperable.

"While some damage can be expected during the course of the transition and moving process, I am concerned this damage may have been deliberately caused by employees of the outgoing Clinton administration," Barr said in a letter to Comptroller General David Walker.

Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., who chairs a subcommittee overseeing the White House budget, said he "won't take any special action" on the vandalism, but will review the expenses "as part of the normal appropriations process."

That means the exact cost – which has been estimated at almost a quarter of a million dollars – would come to light when the subcommittee considers the White House's next budget request.

It was not known whether the GAO will investigate reports that the presidential Boeing 747, known as Air Force One, had been looted by Clinton's party while he was flown, as the ex-president, to New York after Bush's inauguration.

As with the case of the White House damages, the new administration has been trying not to fan the public furor over the Air Force One incident.

Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said: "As far as we're concerned, it's over."

Federal law provides that ex-presidents may have the costs of an office paid for by taxpayers.

For example, Gerald Ford's cost $99,000, Jimmy Carter's $93,000, Ronald Reagan's $285,000 and George Bush's $147,000.

Clinton requested $57,000 to cover his new office space for the first three months, and the GSA paid it. It would have come to $228,000 for the year.

But, as Istook told ABC News, "Now they're saying, 'Oh, we're actually wanting three times that amount, but we're not even going to bother to come back to you to ask for it.' "

In fact, the actual one-year lease Clinton is now demanding for his new offices – the entire 56th floor of the Carnegie Hall Tower in midtown Manhattan, a space larger than the Yankee Stadium infield – will come to $650,000.

"Where is this going to end?" Istook asked.

So the Oklahoma Republican, whose subcommittee sits on the White House budget, is asking the GAO not to honor Clinton's request and to conduct an investigation.

But a Clinton spokesman, who referred to it all as more "Clinton bashing," insisted that even with the rental of the 8,300-square-foot office space, the cost of Clinton's transition still will come in under its $1.8 million budget.

Since the continuing cost to taxpayers to rent the Manhattan office space would be an annual expenditure, it was unclear who would foot the bill after this initial year.

Sean Rushton, spokesman for Citizens Against Government Waste, found nothing unusual about extravagant Clinton expenses.

"The Clintons have always played with taxpayer money with a sense of entitlement," he said. "They have shown an expertise at finding the loopholes and exploiting them to their advantage."

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
Clinton Scandals

Related Products:
Express your opinion about this to top leaders, Congress and the media – send an Urgent PriorityGram. It's easy and powerful! Click Here now.