Ark. Archivists sweep the White House offices clean between presidents. The nonprofit Center for the Study of the Presidency plans to deliver a report to the next president with case studies about presidential leadership styles. When a president leaves office, the White House is swept clean. File drawers are emptied. Hard drives are yanked from computers.
Office furniture is piled in the hallways.
When I walked in, there was not a piece of paper in the drawers. There's some stuff at the National Security Council. And in the White House counsel's office there are some records, but not an awful lot. You kind of expect that the old administration is going to have cleared out, but you're a little bit surprised that the place is as bare as it is. It says the official records of the president and his staff are the property of the United States, not the chief executive.