Posted on 01/11/2005 11:41:41 PM PST by kattracks
Former Clinton White House Mr. Fix-It Bruce Lindsey emerged tight-lipped yesterday after testifying before a federal grand jury probing whether top-secret documents were illegally removed from the National Archives.The grand jury probe, reported exclusively in The Post Tuesday, is digging into why another former Bill Clinton aide, Sandy Berger, sneaked the national security documents out of the Archives — possibly in his socks.
Lindsey denied any inside knowledge about Berger's sticky fingers.
"All I know is what he [Berger] said. He made a public statement," said Lindsey, Clinton's deputy White House counsel, after testifying under oath yesterday.
Berger admits walking off with 40 to 50 top-secret documents from the archives, but claims it was an "honest mistake" while vetting documents for the 9/11 commission.
Berger has admitted destroying some documents — he says by mistake.
Lindsey declined comment on what he told the grand jury, but denied reports that he met with Berger in New York for crisis control as the scandal erupted last summer.
[snip]
Among the documents Berger lifted were multiple drafts of a report assessing the 2000 millennium threat that is said to conclude that only luck prevented a terrorist attack then.
That conflicts with Berger's sworn testimony to the commission — he claimed "we thwarted" millennium attacks by being vigilant, not lucky.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The cell phone thing is really interesting because I thought cell phones were prohibited. And if so, why was Berger allowed to take his in and use it?
That's right he did, but when our President and VP testified behind closed doors that was frowned upon.
Paging Kristen Breitweiser...
Do you know how to search FR using the keyword SOXGATE?
If you do, could you post the link?
July 2003: Berger starts visits to Archives (he later admits to taking notes and leaving with them, against the rules).
September 2, 2003: Berger visits the Archives. This is when the staff notices documents missing and devise a system for his next visit. There are two versions here: One is an Archives employee called Bruce Lindsey and informed of the missing docs. Lanny Breuer denies this version (see timeline line at #160).
September 23, 2003: The Assistant to the President and Director of Presidential Personnel contacts Weinstein, a potential replacement for the then director of the Archives, Carlin.
October 2003: Berger returns and again removes documents and is confronted. He acquires an attorney, Lanny Breuer, previously one of the WH counsel for you-know-who.
Shortly after DOJ is notified of Berger's actions.
December 5, 2003: Alberto Gonzales, WH counsel for President Bush, calls Carlin the Archives Director, and requests his resignation.
January 2004: FBI brought into Berger matter.
July 2004: Hearing for Carlin's potential replacement, Weinstein. WH does not reveal openly that Carlin's resignation was requested, nor do they reveal the reason.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I say that the Rebublicans create a plant, make copies of secret doco's, sneak them out hoping to get caught all the while - then sit back and watch the fire works. We could easily then trap the MSM in a compare and contrast situation - which is clearly a win/win situation for us. I'd love to see that happen.
I've questioned if his celll phone had the capability to send pictures of the document....to confirm that was the one he should stuff.....SOMEONE was pulling his strings.... His phone records should tell who.
This sounds to me like Levin may have stepped in it with this one. I wonder if someone gave him a heads up (belatedly) and he backed off.
July 22, 2004
Intriguing info on Burglar
Maguire finds something in the commission report...
UPDATE: More here...
UPDATE II: The noose tightens on Burglar... From the report:
Berger told us that he saw no chance that Sudan would have handed Bin Ladin over and also noted that in 1996, the U.S. government still did not know of any al Qaeda attacks on U.S. citizens. Samuel Berger interview (Jan. 14, 2004).
Now for the facts:
But reports published before March 1996, when the Sudanese tried to hand the top terrorist over, show that the ex-president did indeed have a legal basis to bring him to America and at least hold him, with an eye toward putting him on trial.
On April 21, 1995, USA Today reported:
"One of the most notorious patrons of Sudan's terrorist camps is Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi Arabian. He was named by federal prosecutors in New York as a potential co-conspirator in the terror trial of radical Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 10 other Muslims accusing of plotting a 'war of urban terrorism' in the USA."
Mohammed Jamal Khalifah, better known as "bin Laden's banker," was also named an unindicted co-conspirator who financed Ramzi Yousef's plot to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993, according to a November 1995 report in U.S. News & World Report.
Six Americans died in the '93 attack, with over 1,000 injured.
Five months before Sudan offered to turn bin Laden over to Clinton, the 9/11 mastermind helped carry out another terrorist attack that killed five Americans.
On Nov. 27, 1995, U.S. News reported, "At 11:40 a.m. last Monday, dozens of Americans sat eating lunch in a downtown Riyadh snack bar in a building that housed a U.S.-run military training center for the Saudi National Guard. Suddenly, a van packed with explosives erupted outside. Another explosion followed seconds later. When the dust settled, six people were dead and 60 injured, most of them Americans."
The final death toll rose to seven, with two Indians among those killed.
Four Saudis later confessed to the crime, naming bin Laden as their leader.
In 2001, PBS's "Frontline" chronicled what the U.S. knew about bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks. According to PBS, prior to Sudan's March 1996 offer to turn the wealthy Saudi over, bin Laden had been implicated in the following terrorist activity:
"February/March 1995 - Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, is captured in Pakistan and extradited to the United States. A search of his former residences leads investigators to believe he is financially linked to bin Laden. Also, he had stayed at a bin Laden-financed guest house while in Pakistan.
"June 1995 - Unsuccessful assassination attempt on the life of the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, in Addis Ababa. U.S. intelligence sources believe bin Laden was somehow linked.
"August 1995 - Bin Laden wrote an open letter to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia calling for a campaign of guerrilla attacks in order to drive U.S forces out of the kingdom.
"November 13, 1995 - Five Americans and two Indians are killed in the truck bombing of a US-operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh. Bin Laden denies involvement but praises the attack.
"Spring 1996 - President Clinton signed a top secret order that authorized the CIA to use any and all means to destroy bin Laden's network." [End of Excerpt]
Unless whoever Berger was calling was smart enough to use a throwaway phone. Then again, I suppose Berger could argu that he just called to pass the time of day.
What I really want to know is who permitted Berger the use of that phone and why.
I see I was wrong (I'll explain in a sec), but I was thinking how the creation of the 9/11 Commission was out of a partisan desire to show "Bush Knew" and it was created in 2002.
Now, the reason I see the memo must have been written in 2003 is this part of it:
"For example, in addition to the President's State of the Union speech, the chairman [Sen. Pat Roberts] has agreed to look at the activities of the office of the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, as well as Secretary Bolton's office at the State Department.
That must be a reference to the infamous "Sixteen Words" from the 2003 SOTU.
But I still maintain it's part of the same plan. Take intelligence and twist it for partisan purposes. Can anything be more despicable? We've known it for ages, but it's still stunning when one ponders it for any amount of time.
Oh, so I'm confused about "memo" and "report," right?
I found this interesting:
Maybe the "leaks" were preemptive in another way. They've got us all focusing on the year 2000 celebration reports, when perhaps its this after-action report related to the 1998 missile strikes that was actually (and apparently, successfully) "disappeared" by Berger.
Another note on that blog says that CNN ran a scroll that said one of the documents that was missing concerns the WTC 1993 bombing.
***Why does my mind skip to the disks missing from Los Alamos, and that Chinese guy. We know Berger was involved with the Chinese Campaign Finance scandal.....***
First Smoking Gun Revealed In Campaign Scandal
By LANCE GAY
Scripps Howard Staff Writer
July 16, 1997
WASHINGTON: Senate investigators brandished their first real smoking gun Tuesday, a document showing that John Huang arranged for an Indonesian company (Lippo) to reimburse him for a $50,000 contribution to the Democratic National Committee.
--SNIP--
Documents released by the committee Tuesday also detail how Hong Kong billionaire Eric Hotung and his wife pledged a $100,000 donation to the DNC for receiving a private briefing with Sandy Berger in 1995. Berger, then deputy national security adviser, is now national security adviser.
White House special counsel Lanny Davis on Tuesday acknowledged that the Oct. 4 meeting with Hotung and Berger occurred, but denied it was in exchange for a contribution. "Mr. Berger has no knowledge of any contributions or promise of contributions by Mr. Hotung," Davis said. "We do not consider such a meeting with Mr. Berger to have been inappropriate."
DNC memos show that Hotung wanted to discuss U.S. policy toward China. In addition to meeting with Berger, White House officials said Hotung had a more lengthy meeting with NSC aide Robert Suettinger, the White House's top intelligence expert on Asia.
--SNIP--
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:GKwq5ml6NGkJ:www.peekaboo.net/archives/cat18/102.html
It is I who is confused and mucking up the waters here; I'm behind in my reading and you all have "moved on" to a different memo.
I'll catch up!
Is this what you mean??
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=soxgate
(Sorry if I'm not posting correctly!!! Please advise...) Thanks ! :)
Apparently the archivists gave Berger privileges b/c he was (gag) Clinton's former ntl security advisor.
I must get some things done...I started reading your find and realize I'll need more time.
Back soon.
Yes! That should be a lot of articles with stuff about Berger in it.
Thanks for doing that!
That allegation you suggest has been made, although I am not sure if we know the actual logistics of Berger's heist, as yet.
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