Posted on 03/31/2005 4:30:05 PM PST by neverdem
WASHINGTON, March 31 - Samuel R. Berger, the former national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal misdemeanor charge and give up his security clearance for three years after removing classified material from a government archive, the Justice Department and associates of Mr. Berger said today.
A well-respected figure in foreign policy circles for many years, Mr. Berger has also agreed to pay a $10,000 fine as part of an agreement reached with the Justice Department in recent days after months of quiet negotiations, the associates said.
He is expected to enter his plea Friday afternoon in Federal District Court here, capping an embarrassing episode that reverberated in last year's presidential campaign.
Mr. Berger had been a senior policy adviser to Senator John F. Kerry's presidential bid - and initially was mentioned as a possible secretary of state if Mr. Kerry were to win. But he was forced to quit the campaign abruptly last July after accusations first surfaced that he had inappropriately removed classified material from a secure reading room at the National Archives, and the case became a political tempest.
The material involved a classified assessment of terrorist threats in 2000, which Mr. Berger was reviewing in his role as the Clinton administration's point person in providing material to the Sept. 11 commission. Officials with the archives and the Sept. 11 commission ultimately determined that despite the incident, the commission had access to all the material needed in its work.
When the issue first surfaced last year, Mr. Berger insisted that he had removed the classified material inadvertently.
But in the plea agreement reached with prosecutors, he is expected to admit that he intentionally removed copies of five classified documents, destroyed three of them, and misled staff members at the National Archives when confronted about it, according to an associate of Mr. Berger who is involved in his defense but who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plea has not yet been made formal in court.
The Justice Department, without discussing details of the plea agreement, acknowledged that Mr. Berger had agreed to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor count for the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents.
Mr. Berger, 59, was unavailable for comment this evening. In a statement, his lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said Mr. Berger "has cooperated fully with the Department of Justice and is pleased that a resolution appears very near."
"He accepts complete responsibility for his actions, and regrets the mistakes he made during his review of documents at the National Archives," Mr. Breuer said, adding that Mr. Berger "looks forward to putting this episode behind him very soon and continuing his career of public and private service to this country."
It is unclear what long-term impact the case will have on Mr. Berger's once-flourishing career in government.
While the plea agreement requires Mr. Berger to give up his secret security clearance for three years, it also allows him to have his clearance reviewed and restored within that time if the government were to ask him to serve on a panel or in another position with access to sensitive material, associates said.
But some political analysts said the case against him - which Republican leaders seized on last year in accusing him of imperiling national security - may have made him unemployable in government in the short term. He is currently chairman of a global business strategy firm.
The criminal charge stems from Mr. Berger's removal of documents from the National Archives on two separate occasions during his review of material for the Sept. 11 commission.
On Sept. 2, 2003, during an hours-long review of documents, Mr. Berger took a copy of a lengthy White House "after action" report that he had commissioned to assess the government's performance in responding to the so-called "millennium" terrorist threat prior to the 2000 new year, and he placed the document in his suit pocket, the associate said. A month later, during another session at the archive, he removed four more copies of other versions of the report, the associate said.
Mr. Berger's intent in removing the documents, the associate said, was to be able to compare the different versions of the 2000 report side by side and trace changes.
"He was just too tired and wasn't able to focus enough, and he felt like he needed to look at the documents in his home or his office to line them up," the associate said. "He now admits that was a real mistake, which he regrets."
Mr. Berger admits compounding the mistake after removing the second set of documents on Oct, 2, 2003, the associate said. In comparing the versions of the report at his office later that day, he realized that several were essentially the same, and he cut three copies into small pieces with a scissors, the associate said. He also admitted improperly removing handwritten notes he took at the archives, the associate said.
Two days later, staff members at the National Archives - who had grown suspicious about Mr. Berger's possible removal of documents - confronted him, and he now admits to misleading the archive about what had happened. He indicated that the removal was inadvertent and, while he returned the two remaining copies of the report to the archive, he said nothing about the three copies he had destroyed, the associate said.
Lame excuse and explanation as usual. And pleading guilty is just scratching the surface. What was his real motive? Who directed him? What did they not want the commission to see? Of course, the MSM is not interested to know or has decided that the American people do not need to know.
Not much has changed in procedures since your day. You gave a precise account of what should happen and most often does happen, in the world of security. Sandy Berger and the National Archives gave us an example of what shouldn't and usually doesn't happen.
muawiyah fyi, incase you haven't seen this thread.
I'll wait for the announcement tomorrow.
Hillary is awful. She has come out against the President's plan for social security AND immigration. She is openly defiant of President Bush's agenda.
She may agree with him on Iraq, but that is not enough for me.
All true Freepers are expected to do everything in their power to defeat Hillary & promote the President's agenda.
Presidential Statement on GOP Budget Position
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release October 19, 1995
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
The Briefing Room
11:09 A.M. EDT
**SNIP**
Q Mr. President, may we take it -- just a final follow-up on this -- may we take it from what you said here today that what you meant to say on taxes was that while you raised them more than you would have liked to, that it was perhaps a mistake to say you raised them too much?
Clinton: If I said anything which implies that I think that we didn't do what we should have done, given the choices we faced at the time, I shouldn't have said that. My mother once said I should never give a talk after 7:00 p.m. at night, especially if I'm tired, and she sure turned out to be right is all I can say. (Laughter.)
I've been wondering what's been going on with SandraStuffedSocks...........
.
I'll NEVER FORGET...
BILL CLINTON's "It ain't no big thing" laughing media diverting reaction to SANDY BERGER's being caught with his pants-socks-shoes-coat pockets jammed full of Top Secret 911 documents outside our National Archives.
This just before BILL CLINTON and SANDY BERGER's appearance before the 911 Commission that was investigating them.
The Enemy is now Within and...
always has been.
.
Sandy is missing out on doing lenthy hard time, and the implication is that he's deprived of his security clearance for only 3 years (which I think has to be the remainder of the period for which he was authorized anyway).
Sandy gave somebody up to the feds. Who could it be?
I'd like to see the answers to those as well. Seems Mr. Berger is very willing to go down on his sword.
How about 1 year and 100K per document?
I would be inclined to think that he had powerful friends that were gonna go on a destroy mission even more than has already happened!
Because of this Sandy's clients will have a difficult time getting security clearances, and Lord help anybody who worked for him ~ their careers are ruined!
The Berger story slips by under the MSM radar, while Tom Delay is publicly hounded for unproven allegations by a known Democrat prosecutor.
MSM fairplay is nonexistent.
Can anyone explain to me why a FORMER National Security Adviser still has access to classified documents?
Anyone.....Anyone......Bueller?
So how will he be punished? A big sloppy wet kiss and a few million for helping the Clintons stay out of jail.
BTTT
copies? If it's another version, it's not a copy,
"Republican Leaders are the ones letting him off"
GOP leaders have never quite "gotten it" about this reciprocity thing ;)
Hillery! is awful true, but why is Berger going to be
allowed to be recertified for a Security clearence in
three years???
2008???
If it was up to me, he'd "never work in this town again".
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