Posted on 04/02/2005 6:17:05 AM PST by conservativecorner
The Powerliners are not happy with the Sandy Berger plea deal. But I'm a little surprised that Burglar - I mean, Berger - admitted so much. From today's Post:
Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, a former White House national security adviser, plans to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, and will acknowledge intentionally removing and destroying copies of a classified document about the Clinton administration's record on terrorism. ...
The deal's terms make clear that Berger spoke falsely last summer in public claims that in 2003 he twice inadvertently walked off with copies of a classified document during visits to the National Archives, then later lost them.
He described the episode last summer as "an honest mistake." Yesterday, a Berger associate who declined to be identified by name but was speaking with Berger's permission said: "He recognizes what he did was wrong. . . . It was not inadvertent."
That all sounds pretty damning. But then you read the actual consequences:
Under terms negotiated by Berger's attorneys and the Justice Department, he has agreed to pay a $10,000 fine and accept a three-year suspension of his national security clearance. These terms must be accepted by a judge before they are final, but Berger's associates said yesterday he believes that closure is near on what has been an embarrassing episode during which he repeatedly misled people about what happened during two visits to the National Archives in September and October 2003. What? Just what do you have to do to get your clearance pulled permanently? Start the clock, he can go back and start deleting memos that make him and his colleagues look bad starting in 2008 or so!
The details of this story are even more damning:
Rather than misplacing or unintentionally throwing away three of the five copies he took from the archives, as the former national security adviser earlier maintained, he shredded them with a pair of scissors late one evening at the downtown offices of his international consulting business. The document, written by former National Security Council terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke, was an "after-action review" prepared in early 2000 detailing the administration's actions to thwart terrorist attacks during the millennium celebration. It contained considerable discussion about the administration's awareness of the rising threat of attacks on U.S. soil.
Although one element of this story apparently is a bit of an urban legend:
On Sept. 2, 2003, the associate said, Berger put a copy of the Clarke report in his suit jacket. He did not put it in his socks or underwear, as was alleged by some Republicans last summer. Now... what about this deafening silence that we have heard on this from Berger's associates, since this story first surfaced? Will we be seeing any criticism of him from former President Clinton, Madeline Albright, Hillary, John Kerry, or any other prominent Democrat? Is the perception that this is no big deal, standard operating procedure for that White House, and is something to be swept under the rug?
Do any Democrats want to confront the unpleasant truths of how the Clinton White House handled terrorism?
Because there were some facts out there that were so damning, Sandy Berger was willing to break the law to make sure the public never saw them.
[Posted 04/01 04:38 AM]
"Obviously he reviewed the notes on the five documents and destroyed the three that contained information damaging to the reputation of the Clinton administration."
Exactly. That is the obvious, plausible explanation and every MSM tool who parrots the line that Berger "only destroyed copies" is either too stupid or too biased (usually both) to merit any position in the news media.
It was obvious from the first instant that there had to be something terribly embarrassing to the Clinton administration for Berger to risk everything to try to get at it and destroy it. Once again we get a lesson in grotesque media bias and ignorance. Bergergate should be bigger than Watergate, since it involves destroying highly classified national security documents to cover up malfeasance at the highest levels, malfeasance which led to the deaths of thousands of Americans. It is ridiculous to believe Berger went to these lengths to destroy merely identical copies of documents..... even an elementary school student should be able to figure out that he and his pals had something very embarrassing to hide, pertaining to Clinton administration (mis-)handling of terrorism issues. The matters involved here are far weightier than what was at stake in Watergate....
Three year suspension=I want to serve Hillary if she can win.
I was just thinking the same thing. I had all but forgotten this story. Can you imagine if it had been a Republican stuffing documents down his pants!? I'll never understand this double standard and why the RATS get away with so much!
You got that right.
But why did he do it,and who did he do it for?I believe is a much bigger question.
He put the documents into his suit pockets to get them out of the archives. He took them to his office and used scissors to destroy three of the copies.
Berger also admitted to smuggling out handwritten notes from the archives. The notes have since been returned to the government.
He would not answer questions as to why he decided to destroy three of the documents
Noel Hillman, chief of the Public Integrity Section at the department of justice, noted that Berger had only taken copies of the documents and said the originals were always in the government’s possession.
“We have determined that no documents, no information was lost to the public or lost to the 9/11 Commission,” Hillman said after the hearing.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050403/asp/foreign/story_4568189.asp
I want to know why Berger has or needs a current, active security clearance.
Thanks for the ping!
When I was in Naval Intel, I don't think the consequences of stealing/destroying Top Secret Codeword documents was this sort of a slap on the wrist. Of course, that was before the country began to lose it's mind and it's will to win.
Why isn't this an act of treason?
The powerliners website
http://www.powerlineblog.com/ indicates that the copies had handwritten notes by different Clinton staffers. The actual question is were these copies of the copies that were annotated, or were these the originals and only form of those notes that were so damning of the Clinton powers that were that 3 of 5 were shredded?
All is forgiven.
I'm not sure I follow your logic here. How can Sandy Burglar be "technically barred from revealing certain things that he knows as our former National Security Advisor...say, at a trial or to our intel agents" if he doesn't have clearance? People withOUT clearance are required to reveal information to people with clearance all the time. He can hardly claim that if he has the clearance, he'll remember things, but if he doesn't have the clearance, he won't be able to remember.
He was, in my opinion, a low-hanging fruit, and there is more to come, in the court of public opinion or in the court system, for his prior boss(es).
My brother pointed out that his clearance could be reinstated just in time for a Hillary Clinton presidency.
"Were I to engage in a little 'literary flair', I might say it seems Sandy walked out of the National Archives with some PDBs in his BVDs, and some classified docs in his socks."
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