Posted on 01/14/2005 4:03:34 PM PST by Libloather
Sandy Burglar?
Thursday January 13, 7:00 pm ET
Ibd
Scandal: Anyone remember Sandy Berger? To the media, the former national security adviser who might have lifted sensitive documents is a forgotten man. Not entirely forgotten, though. A couple of media outlets -- the New York Post and Fox News -- say the criminal probe of the Berger case is in front of a federal grand jury. But then, no one would ever mistake the Post or Fox with being part of the establishment media.
As Washington scandals go, the Berger case had a short shelf life. It was in the news briefly last summer, when word spread that authorities were looking into the possibility that the former Clinton aide (and candidate for a top post in a John Kerry administration) walked out of the National Archives with top-secret documents.
Even more odd were allegations he stuffed some of the documents in his socks, and maybe his trousers. Odd, because Berger admitted to taking 40 to 50 top-secret documents, calling it an "honest mistake." He's also said he mistakenly destroyed some of them.
Could be. Honest mistakes are common. But it appears that Berger was trying to cover up his record and that of his former boss. Some of the documents said to be missing are drafts concluding it was just luck the U.S. avoided direct terror attacks in 2000, Clinton's last year in the White House. In testimony in front of Congress, Berger claimed "we thwarted" attacks.
Berger might also have made off with a draft showing he rejected a January 2000 attack on an al-Qaida camp. It's also known that he wrote "No" in the margin of a memo on a plan to capture Osama bin Laden.
Was he still trolling for that paper when he became an unwelcome guest at the National Archives, where he went over documents in preparation for the 9-11 panel hearings?
Last summer's transgressions, if true, wouldn't be Berger's only loose play with federal documents. As we noted in July, Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., says the National Archives incident was the second documented case of Berger mishandling classified information.
The first was in 1999, when Weldon says he sent an advance copy of a security report to Berger for review, only to have Berger pre-release information to put a "White House spin on what was still a classified document."
We realize that since Berger isn't a Republican, this matter is of little interest to the media elite. The grand jury is said to be moving ahead, however, and has already questioned another former Clinton aide, Bruce Lindsey. We trust the Post and Fox will stay on it.
I'm sure they're busy jumping all over that Senator Clinton (RAT-NY) campaign finance irregularities story...
Does not the president have the power to say, "Nope - declassify that?"
Wanna straighten out a lot of crooked people in govt? Re-institute the polygraph far and wide and watch what happens.
The guy should be in jail UNTIL this is resolved, it is a breach of national security no matter who steals documents.
Can you believe this guy is so incompetent and Kerry wanted him in his administration, says a whole lot about what an idiot Kerry is....
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Have we seen a liberal Democrat administration that was not a tragic laughing-stock of pathetic misfits and whackos??? Just look at Clinton's cabinet...God help America...
bttt
Yes the president can, but I don't think his cabinet and staff can do declassify on a whim.
Isn't this in the hands of a grand jury?
Yes, Down My Pants. Oh, Like You Haven't? The Sordid Sandburglar Story
various FR links | 07-20-04 | The Heavy Equipment Guy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1175187/posts
Simple: The triumph of hope over experience.
bump
Who the hell cares if MSM ignores the story? The AG's office will do what it will do regardless of MSM. Grand jury evidence will be discussed regardless of MSM.
We can, along with MSM, hop online to Powelineblog and Drudge to track the story. MSM is irrelevant.
Didn't Bush very early on in his first term, classify all Presidental Docs going back to his Dad or to Clinton for the next 40 years?
I wouldn't be surprised. But it would be improper not to expect him to follow a legal procedure to do so. There is a lot at stake and we can't just have the President saying that something is or is not classified without providing the public servants who are charged with maintaining such documents with clear authorizations.
The case you are referring to appears to be a situation where the administration wished to have all the advantages of classification while some members were taking political advantage of the information. The system of classifying information is to serve national security, not the political needs of a particular administration.
By way of analogy, the President is Commander-in-Chief of the US armed forces. We would take a dim view of the President ordering a military attack on the opposition political party headquarters, however justified and well-intentioned.
It may have been done in an underhanded way, but if the whitehouse released it, it is no longer classified, by definition.
The MSM labors under the delusion that if they ignore it, it can't really be happening. When indictments get handed down they'll have no choice but to choke out a report or two about it, then they'll point to the short and spare stories as "proof" that they're fair since they "reported" it.
We'll just keep following the actual facts and be pleased as the trials begin and we'll keep correcting the inevitable spin and lies that will also end up in the MSM.
What are you talking about? I don't think you understand the context of the Weldon complaint. The information was not declassified and no, a president cannot arbitrarily and unilaterally move to do something like that---which it wasn't, in any case. You're thinking of Clinton, in 1999, btw, right?
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