Berger Medium Well, please. Oh!, and I'll have it Willie style......hold the bun!
Posted on 07/20/2004 11:06:11 AM PDT by Dems_R_Losers
WASHINGTON, July 20 — President Clinton's national security advisor, Samuel R. Berger, inadvertently removed classified national security documents from the National Archives while vetting them in preparation for testimony before the Sept. 11 commission, his lawyers said Monday night. The revelation caused political fallout whose importance was not clear today.
Mr. Berger removed at least two slightly different versions of a memo critiquing how the government handled national intelligence and security issues before the millennium celebration in December 1999, as well as personal notes he had taken on classified documents, according to one of Mr. Berger's lawyers, Lanny Breuer.
"In the course of reviewing over several days thousands of pages of documents on behalf of the Clinton administration in connection with requests by the 9/11 Commission, I inadvertently took a few documents from the Archives," Mr. Berger said in a statement Monday night. "I also took my notes on the documents reviewed. When I was informed by the Archives there were documents missing, I immediately returned everything I had, except for a few documents that apparently I had accidentally discarded."
Mr. Berger said he "deeply regret [sic] the sloppiness involved" and that he did not intend to keep any document from the commission. The investigation and Mr. Berger's statement were first reported by The Associated Press. All of the documents and notes were returned by Mr. Berger to the archives in early October, within a week of his learning they were missing, his lawyers said.
"I think it's clear from his actions that he absolutely no intention to hide anything," Mr. Breuer said on Monday night.
Nevertheless, Mr. Berger's actions could have ripple effects. For one thing, he has been an adviser to Senator John Kerry, President's Bush's presumptive Democrat opponent. Then, too, the disclosure that the documents were mishandled comes just before the Sept. 11 commission is to release its long-awaited report. A spokesman for the commission, Al Felzenberg, told The Associated Press today that Mr. Berger's actions would have no effect on the work of the panel, which Mr. Felzenberg said had had access to all the materials it needed.
--snip--
Mr. Berger is the subject of a criminal investigation, not the target of one. The distinction is crucial. A subject is a person whose activities are of interest to investigators; a target is a person who might be charged with actual wrongdoing.
Mr. Berger's lawyer, Mr. Breuer, sought on Monday night to retrace the events.
In June 2003, Mr. Berger was asked by a representative of the Clinton administration to examine the documents at the Archives to confirm that none of the material was privileged, Mr. Breuer said.
Mr. Berger's security clearance and his familiarity with the material made him the logical choice to review the documents, his lawyers said. Still, his lawyers said, Mr. Berger saw only copies. "Nothing he saw was an original," Mr. Breuer said.
For Mr. Berger, the review meant an opportunity to reacquaint himself with a document that he had asked Richard C, Clarke, then the counterterrorism chief, to prepare shortly after intelligence officials uncovered and prevented Al Qaeda terror plots to be unleashed during the January 2000 celebrations.
While reviewing one copy of the document in September and another in October, Mr. Berger noticed a slight difference and examined the two more closely, his lawyers said. Then, they said, he inadvertently packed them away and brought them home. It is possible that Mr. Berger repeated the mistake with more versions of the document.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Tiny Tom Dashole has also weighed in, of course, with the Dem talking points, questioning "the timing" of the release of this info, not the egregious crime itself. Typical Dem diversion and distraction tactics.
Berger Medium Well, please. Oh!, and I'll have it Willie style......hold the bun!
Berger Medium Well, please. Oh!, and I'll have it Willie style......hold the bun!
I suppose that means you expect me to pick up the Guinness!
Indeed. The spin of the Slimes is so grossly apparent. While every other news source is correctly reporting that he INTENTIONALLY took his notes out (a violation of the Archive's procedures at LEAST, if not the law), he "inadvertently" took some actual documents too.
Point being of course, the Slimes here portrays his actions as completely inadvertent, which is simply not the case, even in Berger's own words!!!!!!!! Do they mention this elsewhere in the article? I don't know. Nor do I care anymore. That paper is such a rag I'm not going to waste my time looking at the entire piece.
The bias is obvious, as in the first sentence they already try to get the reader in a mindset that it was "all a mistake".
Bwahahahaha!!!
Yeah, lets' see.
The reporting (or non-reporting) on this by the New York Times is no less than shameful. They tried to bury the story, and then they wrote that masterfully-written and deceptive lead sentence for the propaganda they finally got around to reporting.
To write that "President Clinton's national security advisor, Samuel R. Berger, inadvertently removed classified national security documents from the National Archives while vetting them in preparation for testimony before the Sept. 11 commission, his lawyers said Monday night," IS A SCANDALOUS ABUSE OF SOPHISTICATED RHETORICAL SKILLS.
The Times writers are professionals; they KNOW what they are doing. To lead with the patently absurd and unsubstantiated assertion that Berger "INADVERTENTLY" removed the documents is to legitimize the criminal's alibi. The reader is inevitably forced to conclude that the inadvertence is the point of the story. The innocent reader is swept up in this lie and only belatedly, at the end of the sentence, is informed that the purported inadvertence is merely the fiction of the accused's lawyers. This is WRONG...and shameful.
No wonder people have come to think that the Old Grey Lady has turned into an Old Grey Whore of the Democrats. -OhMike
"It's WATERGATE! What did CLINTON know, when did he know it, and how much of it got shredded/lost?"
BTTT! DOCUGATE BUMP!
I guess you don't have to graduate from high school to be a reporter (or an editor) for the NYTimes (as long as you can spin the news in the appropriate direction).
Nope. The media is already restless with having to carry the water for a lame-o (and rest assured they KNOW he's a lame-o) like Kerry. They know their attempt at trying to create some "excitement" for the least-exciting candidate in years is costing them bigtime with the public. They're not about to ratchet their remaining credibility down trying to defend a Clinton functionary who stuffs documents in his slacks. The Clinton Group's already overstayed welcome just got very, very frosty.
So have all of the documents been returned or is the NY Times trying to mislead us?
Am I the first to nickname him Sandy "The Bulge" Berger?
Well, they did tack "his lawyers said" onto the end of that sentence, so they're reporting it as an assertion by one of the parties involved rather than as a fact. So technically they're not just giving Berger a pass.
I tell ya, these liberal writers are tricky. Even when they follow the letter of the law, so to speak, they rarely follow the spirit. Someone skimming through this article could easily get the wrong impression. The article could have been written differently, so that both a quick reading and a detailed reading would impart the same meaning. But that would have been responsible, impartial journalism, and the NYT isn't in that business.
I don't need to read beyond this.
How does one "inadvertently" stuff documents in ones pants?
Brad,
If you have the sock link from Drudge you have the underware link. You have to read the article, not just the headlines.
Sorry to have offended your reading guidelines, but Fox reported sox, not boxers.
It's known because the librarian(s) noticed things [as in multiples of document] turning up missing when Sandy was in the area. and
I'd suspect that, apart from only him knowing what's in them, not too many others want very much to touch them after their little ride.
I particularly like this quote from the second paragraph of the article. Deliberate obfuscation by the Times. I the first two words of the paragraph you learn that whatever Burgertime did it was inadvertant. It's not until the last three words and 4 commas later that you learn that that's how Burgerboy's attorney characterized the situation.
It won't be because they don't try...
Breuer said Berger was allowed to take handwritten notes but also knew that taking his own notes out of the secure reading room was a "technical violation of Archive procedures, but it is not all clear to us this represents a violation of the law."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,126249,00.html
Brad,
I am not upset, it is obvious you haven't read the Fox article. It said sox, shoe, and box.
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