Okay, I did some research*, and this is what I could come up with as far as the first reports of vandalism in the White House. It's a transcript of Ari Fleischer's answers to questions on the 26th of January. This is the best I can get (short of a link to Lloyd Grove's January 23rd column in the Washington Post -- please e-mail me if you find it). Here's another article from that same search.

To summarize:

This is what the president had to say when asked about the acts of vandalism:

"I'm so happy to be here -- (laughter) -- that I'm looking forward. There might have been a prank or two, maybe somebody put a cartoon on the wall -- that's okay. It's time now to move forward. It's time to focus our attention on what's possible and how to get children educated. I'm excited about what this week has brought. I'm excited about my job."

Here's what Ari Fleisher had to say:

Q Ari, how dismayed is the President about the vandalism, and what does he want you to do with the cataloging once it's completed?

MR. FLEISCHER: You know, I think we really dealt with that question. His focus is on governing. He's not focused on any of the things that took place as we arrived here. The cataloging that I mentioned, frankly, that's one person in their administrative offices who is really just keeping track in his head about things that may have taken place. So we've moved beyond it.

Q But, Ari, this is a President who has come in here, expressed from the very beginning how honored he is to be here, how he wants to restore honor and dignity to this office. Doesn't he consider it a personal affront that taxpayer money must go to replace the vandalized property here?

MR. FLEISCHER: He does not consider it a personal affront.

Here's where it gets interesting...

Q Ari, are there -- just a follow-up, please, on the vandalism. Could you at some point get us a figure, because people are using wild figures -- $90,000 -- just give us some general ballpark idea?

MR. FLEISCHER: We're not. We're just going to focus on doing our jobs here. Any of the things that took place upon our arrival here are not in our focus. And I understand it is in the focus of some others, but it's not in ours. And we're just going to put our heads down and do our jobs and go to work. It's in the past.

Q But Ari, the President says this is the people's house. I mean, don't you folks owe a duty to the people to tell them what's been done to their house?

MR. FLEISCHER: I think that whatever took place is passed, and our focus is going to be to just do the job that the American people elected President Bush to do. And I can understand -- sometimes in Washington people want others to fight, and this is part of changing the tone. We're just going to do our jobs.

Q Ari, some Clinton folks that we've talked to said, wait a minute, there's sort of a double standard here. No one says from the Bush White House exactly what happened. There's this word cataloging, but there's no specifics ever given. And they're saying in many respects, they don't think these things ever happened in the first place. And we don't even know how to respond to allegations that are as amorphous as these are. And when you say cataloged, is this a catalogue that's going to be kept within the White House forever, or at some point are you going to tell the American people in some sort of way --

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, as I said, it's one person in an administration who is just keeping track in his head of the different things that people have said took place to their desks or offices, and as far as we're concerned, it's over.

Q Is there going to be an effort to confirm these things?

Q Can we download the mental catalogue for the reporters to look at?

MR. FLEISCHER: It's just not our focus.

Q Ari, did the President specifically give instructions that no kinds of criminal charges or legal charges should be pursued with respect to any vandalism or mischief that might have taken place?

MR. FLEISCHER: It is the White House's position, it is our focus, and obviously that's what we're doing.

Q No. Did the President give instructions that there should be no pursuit of this in terms of legal or criminal charges of the vandalism or mischief, or whatever --

MR. FLEISCHER: My information comes from Andy Card. If Andy got it from the President, I'm not aware of it. That's our position.

To see the larger context of the transcripts, hit [CTRL]-F on your MSIE browser and search for all occurrences of the word 'vandal' .

*research consisted of going to Yahoo!News Advanced Search and searching articles with the keywords 'white house vandalism' from 01/23/01-01/30/01.