Berger Pleads Guilty To Taking Materials

AP via ABC News ^ | April 1, 2005 | Mark Sherman

[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.

[MamaLucci]

It is hard to imagine that the American government can allow this to be resolved as a misdemeanor.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

Take away his access to classified documents for three years!?! This self-serving jerk should never again be let anywhere near a classified document.

[cyncooper]

Excellent points on why he'd "own up" to cutting with scissors, whether it's fact or fiction.

[EllaMinnow]

Scissors? I guess he wanted to be able to cut horizontally through each line and couldn't be sure a shredder would ensure fragment illegibilty.

Very interesting, indeed.

[kellynla]

Talk about a "sweetheart deal"

Well, the Clintoons got the FBI files on Congressmen and copied the files; so they and their klan have a J.Edgar Hoover insurance policy ad infinitum...

George Soros & Company will take care of Fat Sandy as long as he takes the hit and keeps his mouth shut...

"oh your honor, it was my idea and no one else's"
yea...right

[Cboldt]

I find it fascinating that Martha Stewart is considered as more of a criminal. She would have been glad to pay and walk.

She could have. All she had to do was cop a plea to the (still pending) insider trading charge. Berger plead guilty; Stewart asserted that she was innocent.

[EllaMinnow]

First of all, his plea bargain hasn't been accepted by the Magistrate.
Second of all, his sentencing isn't till July.

The lenience of the possible penalty put forth by ABC might just be their own wishful thinking.

[RJL]

The Berger associate authorized to speak with reporters

Is this the paid liar who comes out and tells us a story and if it's proven wrong, Samual Berger didn't lie, it was all just a mix up or miscommunication.

We went through this with Clinton on the Kathleen Wiley scandal.

Remember they were setting Wiley up to be a nut, Clinton's lawyer came out and told us that Bill didn't remember any meeting and they thought that Wiley was probably too upset about her husband to think clearly?

Then Wiley says, she met with Bill on this date and time, and as she left the Oval Office she saw and named former Senator Lloyd Bentsen and several others.

Knowing Senator Bentsen and the rest weren't going to lie for Bill, all of a sudden it was a mix up or miscommunication, Bill suddenly remembered the meeting very well, of course he still remembered it very differently than Wiley.

[countess]

She could have. All she had to do was cop a plea to the (still pending) insider trading charge. Berger plead guilty; Stewart asserted that she was innocent.

Well, for national security reasons, I'd rather have Martha dump a stock she knew was going to tank than for Sandy B. to take his weed whacker to the National Archives.

[jriemer]

The plea not only discloses what Berger did in detail but it completely destroys past Democrat talking points that the whole episode was merely an accident, something of the "mistakes were made" genre or a VRWC plot. Many have reason to be nervous from here on out.

[Peach]

No jail time.

$10,000 fine (small change to Berger)

3 years he loses his security clearance? Should be permanent.

I am rather doubtful that his cooperation will result in another arrest. We all know he did this for Clinton and his legacy and Sandy's legacy as well.

No way Clinton is going down for this. The Bush administration stopped all investigations into Clinton wrong doings when he took office.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but I just don't see his cooperation as netting us anything except what we already knew: Clinton is a crook and letting him near anything related to national security was a serious mistake for which we will pay for years.

[cyncooper]

Many have reason to be nervous from here on out.

Good to hear. That's what I was thinking.

[eureka!]

"It is hard to imagine that the American government can allow this to be resolved as a misdemeanor."

That is is, unless Burglar was a little fish. Time will tell...

[Fudd Fan]

A little song
A little dance
A couple of documents stuffed down the pants

[Southack]

"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."

I agree, but as members on the Senate Intel committee, the Democrats (perhaps even Kerry himself) could have viewed this document at their leisure. So it makes little sense that he would pass those along (at most he would have made his own copies, passed along those copies, and returned the official docs).

...And Berger wouldn't have stolen 5 copies (yes, he returned 2 copies) in order to give to 5 other people; he would have stolen 1 version and made 4 more copies at Kinkos.

Why steal 5 copies of the same document? Because each copy had unique handwritten notes from different intel analysts.

3 of those copies/notes were apparently dynamite, too. He risked jail and his career to destroy them.

Certainly the Corrupt Old Media isn't asking him about those three docs (i.e. why he destroyed them and not the others).

But here's the smoking gun: we know the *analysts* who wrote the different notes on each of those 3 destroyed copies, so we know what Sandy was trying to hide.

It might not become public, but we know his game. We know what the Clinton Administration wanted covered up from the intel analysis of the Clarke Report on Al Qaeda. Clearly, 3 different intel analysts noted on their copies of that doc a connection that was political poison for Democrats, regarding Al Qaeda anti-terrorism efforts.

...And Berger risked jail and his career to prevent the 9/11 commission from putting that connection into its book.

[brooklin]

Why not just tear them up? He must need to work out more.

[MamaLucci]

Excellent analysis.

What we don't know (or do we?) is if copies were made of
the docs after handwritten notations were made on each of them.

[Shermy]

It's enticing to put motives to Clinton and so.

But Berger may have acted in his own interest. To protect his legacy.

He had already received hindsight criticism for blocking attacks on Osama.

[Solamente]

If anybody else so much as walked out with a paperclip, they'd do 20 years. I'm mad as hell about this.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

Ping to post #55

Good points, Southack