Lindsey is Bill Clinton's official liaison person with the NA. However, it couldn't have been Lindsey who had the authority to approve Berger, but only Bill himself. But Bill Clinton is not president (although this may come as a surprise to him) and to my knowledge is not the head of any agency and in fact occupies no official position. So how does even Clinton get the authority to permit Berger this access?
I think we are going to find that several people at the NA bent the rules for Berger at the personal request of Bill. In other words, he had no authority to make this request, but because (as we have documented on another post) the NA is relentlessly anti-Bush, it was probably easy for him to whisper in the ears of the archivists. ("Uh, won't ya just, uh, let muh buddy Sandy here, uh, have a little, uh, time to himself, uh.") It's the usual Clinton story. Wherever that man goes, he leaves a trail of lies and broken laws.
Until the Nixon days, all Presidential papers were considered the personal property of the President (precedent established by Geo. Washington).
Currently, Presidential papers are considered the property opf the National Archives. Presidential papers are closed for 5 years after a President leaves office.
Currently, all Clinton papers are under the purview of the Clinton Presidential Materials Project in Little Rock (which is part of NA). Classified documents and some types of personal documents remain directly under the purview or control of the President for 12 years after leaving office.
So Bill Clinton has direct authority over classified documents (although they're in the custody of the NA).
I think we are going to find that several people at the NA bent the rules for Berger at the personal request of Bill.
I don't think that's quite true, but not because I'm by any stretch a Clinton defender.
It actually looks as if NA went by the book. But in making their first call to Lindsey (as descibed on the initial reporting of this scandal), it becomes clear that at least he and probably Bill Clinton had first and last say-so in granting the clearance waiver to Berger.
It was probably authorized actually by the Bush administration.
Back in about February Bruce Lindsey raised a hue and cry about the Bush administration withholding Clinton era documents from the 9/11 commission that they needed to see.
The media dutifully picked up the tone and implication that the Bush people were hiding Clinton's anti-terrorism docs under a bushel. Of course, it turned out the Bush administration had already sent over everything---but I think there might have been less than a dozen docs the commission found when they *re-sent* the 10,000 pages Lindsey accused them of withholding.
At the time we were scratching our heads over why he was playing this game, except to just stir the waters. Now it appears definitely connected to this Berger investigation somehow.
So, to review: Actual authorization was granted to the Clinton group from the Bush administraion because the 9/11 commission needed the info and someone had to go through the stuff and Clinton then assigned Berger.
April 2, 2004
excerpts:
Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said that some Clinton administration documents had been withheld because they were “duplicative or unrelated,” while others were withheld because they were “highly sensitive” and the information contained in them could be relayed to the commission in other ways.
“We are providing the commission with access to all the information they need to do their job,” McClellan said.
The commission and the White House were reacting on Thursday to public complaints from former aides to Clinton, who said they had been surprised to learn in recent months that three-quarters of the nearly 11,000 pages of White House files it was ready to offer the commission had been withheld from the panel by the Bush administration.
The former aides said the files, which are now in the custody of the National Archives, contained highly classified documents about the Clinton administration’s efforts against al-Qaida.
~snip~
The general counsel of Clinton’s presidential foundation, Bruce Lindsey, who was Clinton’s deputy White House counsel and one of his closest advisers, said in an interview that he was concerned that the Bush administration had applied a “very legalistic approach to the documents” and might have blocked the release of material that would be valuable to the commission.
He said he first complained to the commission in February about the situation after learning from the archives that the Bush administration had withheld so many documents.
~snip~