Once you get past the spin, Berger had an original document, not just copies...and it was a RICHARD CLARKE document.
Posted on 04/01/2005 2:49:28 PM PST by cyncooper
WASHINGTON Apr 1, 2005 — Former national security adviser Sandy Berger, who once had unfettered access to the government's most sensitive secrets, pleaded guilty Friday to sneaking classified documents out of the National Archives, then using scissors to cut up some of them.
Rather than the "honest mistake" he described last summer, Berger acknowledged to U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson that he intentionally took and deliberately destroyed three copies of the same document dealing with terror threats during the 2000 millennium celebration. He then lied about it to Archives staff when they told him documents were missing.
"Guilty, your honor," Berger responded Friday when asked how he pleaded.
Robinson did not ask Berger why he cut up the materials and threw them away at the Washington office of his Stonebridge International consulting firm. Berger, accompanied by his wife, Susan, did not offer an explanation when he addressed reporters outside the federal courthouse following the hearing.
"It was a mistake and it was wrong," he said, refusing to answer questions.
Noel Hillman, chief of the Justice Department's public integrity section, would not discuss Berger's motivation, but said the former national security adviser understood the rules governing the handling of classified materials. Berger only had copies of documents; all of the originals remain in the government's possession, Hillman said.
The charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material is a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison and up to a $100,000 fine.
However, under a plea agreement that still must be approved by Robinson, Berger would serve no jail time but pay a $10,000 fine, surrender his security clearance for three years and cooperate with investigators. Security clearance allows access to classified government materials.
Sentencing was set for July 8.
The court appearance was the culmination of a bizarre episode in which Berger, who once had access to the government's most sensitive intelligence, was accused of sneaking documents out of the Archives, which houses the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and other cherished and top-secret documents.
The Bush administration disclosed the investigation in July, just days before the Sept. 11 commission issued its final report. Democrats claimed the White House was using Berger to deflect attention from the harsh findings, with their potential for damaging President Bush's re-election prospects.
After news of the probe surfaced, Berger acknowledged he left the National Archives on two occasions in 2003 with copies of documents about the government's anti-terror efforts and notes that he took on those documents.
He said he was reviewing the materials to help determine which Clinton administration documents to provide to the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. He called the episode "an honest mistake" and denied criminal wrongdoing.
Berger and his lawyer, Lanny Breuer, have said that Berger knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket and pants and inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.
He returned two copies of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration.
The Associated Press first reported in July that the Justice Department was investigating Berger. The disclosure prompted Berger to step down as an adviser to the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
Clinton was among the Democrats who questioned the timing of the disclosure of the Berger probe three days before the release of the Sept. 11 report. Leaders of the Sept. 11 commission said they were able to get every key document needed to complete their report.
Once you get past the spin, Berger had an original document, not just copies...and it was a RICHARD CLARKE document.
Anyone buying this? I can't believe the SamBurgler would risk a year in jail and $100,000 fine to destroy copies.
When this was first discovered, wasn't there another huge story that took him out of the headlines?
I noticed the parsing of the socks not being involved in the first episode, too, while the other date did not get the denial.
Notice our reporter here jumps as high as the lawyer instructs with his dutiful "as was alleged by some Republicans" line.
I believe anyone who alleged such did it based on media reports.
The spin is designed to get you to envision that he chopped up the entire document, when what Berger did was cut out the damaging notes in the margins; later he decided not to return those 3 versions at all.
Yup...we've known it was a Richard Clarke document.
"originals" is a misleading term in this instance.
Of course, Berger must have thought he had originals...
Maybe everything was copied...
Certainly after the first incident was witnessed, wouldn't you? As part of the trap?
The govt. isn't talking straight so they must have agreed not to comment much. I guess.
What about the socks?
He did not even lose his law liscense.
"WELCOME TO THE REAL AMERICA WHERE CRIMINALS GET TO BE
CELEBRITIES AND CELEBRITIES GET AWAY WITH MURDER."
"TO DIE FOR" Columbia Pictures
But why would he admit that to the investigators? They must have had evidence that forced him to give them that level of detail instead of sticking with deny deny deny.
That's news to me.
Excellent point Swampsniper.
And they did. Former NSA, each document required a written acknowledgment of the law and penalties. He was toast. Burnt toast. I can't imagine it is over...
Does he also lose his right to vote for Hillary! for president?
-PJ
"Do the implications of "cooperating" not sound any alarms?
I think this is great." - cyncooper
What cooperation? The non-punishment looks like Bush-league justice for a fellow member of the political class.
The article alludes to an original...but it's the notes in the margins that were in play, anyway.
Each case analyst gets a copy of the document; each analyst then writes her own notes in the margins of her copy. Naturally, this means that different copies have unique notes.
Three of those copies were "destroyed" by Berger; clearly he feared the different notes in the margins on those docs.
The RED FLAG here is that Berger was looking at 5 different copies of the same document. You don't do that just to brush up on the content of said document, you look at those copies in order to see what each different analyst said in the margins.
Usually when someone is cooperating, they are turning in someone else (such as others involved in the crime) or otherwise doing something to help with the damage they caused (e.g., spy describes in detail the info that he turned over to our enemy).
Is he simply describing in detail the documents that he illegally destroyed or could there be others involved in his crimes?
One more thing, why should he ever get a security clearance again? If he was a lower level person who had so outrageously and intentionally violated laws about handling secrets, he would never get a clearance again.
I did not turn anything around.
You are way out of line to say I take this as a joke or I turned anything around.
I sought out a report to post because I do think it is important.
Furthermore, over the past months when people would complain about Sandy Berger "getting away" with stealing documents I would opine that in fact the DOJ was pressuring him to cooperate.
So what do we find out? That is exactly what has happened.
I do not want just Berger to account for this. He did not do this on his own and we all know who he was doing this for.
This is dead serious.
No, he had to claim that the documents were destroyed to justify not returning them. How were they destroyed? With scissors, he explains.
If Berger admitted that he passed the documents along to somebody else (the Kerry campaign, perhaps?) then he is going to jail, big time.
If Berger admitted that he had not destroyed them but disposed of them intact, that would have been a much more serious security problem.
If Berger admitted that he had shredded them, it would have been a much bigger political problem, since shredding documents is seen by the general public as an attempt to hide evidence.
So Berger admits that he destroyed them but did not shred them. It is the typical Clintonista middle-position lie, and is completely predictable...
Only Berger knows what really happened to those documents.
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