A government official with knowledge of the investigation said Archives employees took action promptly after noticing a missing document in September. This official said an Archives employee called former White House deputy counsel Bruce Lindsey, who is former president Bill Clinton's liaison to the National Archives. The Archives employee said documents were missing and would have to be returned.
Under this version of events -- which Breuer denied -- documents were returned the following day from Berger's office to the Archives. Not included in these papers, the government official said, were any drafts of the document at the center of this week's controversy.
The documents that Berger has acknowledged taking -- some of which remain missing -- are different drafts of a January 2000 "after-action review" of how the government responded to terrorism plots at the turn of the millennium. The document was written by White House anti-terrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke, at Berger's direction when he was in government.
Lindsey, now in private legal practice in Little Rock, did not return telephone and e-mail messages.
When they should have called in the cops, imho.