Posted on 12/20/2006 2:12:49 PM PST by Mr. Mojo
Former national security adviser Sandy Berger removed classified documents from the National Archives in 2003 and hid them under a construction trailer, the Archives inspector general reported Wednesday. The report was issued more than a year after Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removal of the documents.
Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that when Berger was confronted by Archives officials about the missing documents, he said it was possible he threw them in his office trash.
The report said that when Archives employees first suspected that Berger _ who had been President Clinton's national security adviser _ was removing classified documents from the Archives in the fall of they failed to notify any law enforcement agency.
Berger, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents, was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and was barred from access to classified material for three years.
The report said that when Berger was reviewing the classified documents in the Archives building a few blocks from the Capitol, employees saw him bending down and fiddling with something white, which could have been paper, around his ankle.
However, Archives employees did not feel at the time there was enough information to confront someone of Berger's stature, the report said.
Brachfeld reported that on one visit, Berger took a break to go outside without an escort.
"In total, during this visit, he removed four documents ... .
"Mr. Berger said he placed the documents under a trailer in an accessible construction area outside Archives 1 (the main Archives building)."
Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office.
Berger, with the authorization of former President Clinton, was reviewing National Security Council documents on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, Sudan, and related presidential correspondence. The review was to facilitate Berger's impending testimony before the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Heck, I forgot to add the "Travelgate files" too.
Too many files to remember
Look, the Republicans were in charge of Congress at the time. They could have investigated this in depth, but they let it go. Now the Democrats will investigate the hell out of the Republican administration members.
The stupid party!
It's the same crime, so I don't think that it can be retried anywhere. But, I could be wrong. You'll have to ask a lawyer.
This is much bigger than Sandy Burglar...
He should have used the Hillary defense: "I can't remember, my brain's in a blender, it's Jello!"
Don't deface Grimace with that harpy's visage. Grimace deserves better!
whatever sandy took out will become evident at his untimely death... noone involved with the clintons will allow them to make a clean break... blue dress, vince foster... berger took something, but has it under glass until he needs it.
teeman
WHAT’S IN SANDY’S PANTS
“Far from merely taking copies of national security documents to ‘refresh’ his memory about Clinton administration anti-terrorism policies, (former Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy) Berger took five different versions of a review of the Clinton team’s record on terrorism written in 2000 by White House aide Richard Clarke.
Each version contained unique handwritten notes or markings made by various high-level recipients of the memo.
In other words, each copy could reveal the responses of various key administration players to Mr. Clarke’s analysis of how the Clinton administration had responded to the rising threat of attacks on the U.S. homeland.
For reasons known only to himself, Mr. Berger shredded three of the five versions of the memo in his office.”
- John Fund, Political Diary, 4/1/05
Where is the Trial for TREASON?????????
Apparently stealing and destroying documents from the NA was part of berglers regular routine.
This AP article fails to mention Berger is also on two years probation. The AP sometimes uses Berger as a foreign policy source when doing stories critical of Bush.
Yep..and he has one man to thank for it...George Walker Bush.
He was a member of the Iraq Study Group.
Hi, Wolfstar. I vaguely remember that the judge gave Berger a harsher sentence than DOJ asked for. And since the sentence Berger got was basically a slap on the wrist, then DOJ didn't ask for much of a sentence.
He was caught red handed. The archive folks had him on tape for at least one of the instances that he stole documents. There were four separate instances, iirc.
The whole thing is fishy.
Do you think the AP had this info on, say, Nov. 1?
Can anyone explain why (other than the usual lib biased mendacity) the IG is only reporting on this NOW, years after the crime and just days before Xmas and long after Sandy Burglar escaped with only the mildest legal penalties???
This Burglar-scum stole documents of extremely high classification, destroyed several of them, and did who knows what other nefarious deeds to obstruct the investigation of the 9/11 Omission-commission.
Anyone in the military who pulled this kind of garbage with such highly classified materials would have faced very serious charges, an end of career, and major personal jeopardy. Yet, the Burglar gets away with a light wrist-slap and the prospect of re-joining a future 'Rat administration when he should be in JAIL and barred from ever handling classified materials again.
The claim that the "content" of relevant documents was presented to the 9/11 frauds is obvious b.s. Sandy Burglar was risking jail and disgrace to destroy the handwritten notes of certain WH officials, most obviously Bill Clinton..... there is no other plausible explanation of why the Burglar would run such extreme risks to destroy documents that (it is claimed) the 9/11 Omission would see anyway.
Just how did this crappy IG get away with suppressing this vital information and report until the very end of the Republican Congress (not that those weaklings would have acted anyway)???? Once again Clintonista crime, depravity, and obstruction of justice has been aided and abetted by Quisling bureaucrats, MSM hacks, DNC stooges, and vapid weakling Republicans.
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