Posted on 07/19/2004 5:07:42 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
AP: Clinton Adviser Probed in Terror Memos
3 minutes ago Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!
By JOHN SOLOMON
WASHINGTON - President Clinton (news - web sites)'s national security adviser, Sandy Berger, is the focus of a criminal investigation after admitting he removed highly classified terrorism documents from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings, The Associated Press has learned.
Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI (news - web sites) agents armed with warrants. Some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing.
Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had taken from classified anti-terror documents he reviewed at the National Archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants. He also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio, they said.
"I deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced," Berger said in a statement to the AP.
Berger served as Clinton's national security adviser for all of the president's second term and most recently has been informally advising Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites). Clinton asked Berger last year to review and select the administration documents that would be turned over to the commission.
The FBI searched Berger's home and office with warrants earlier this year after employees of the National Archives told agents they believed they witnessed Berger put documents into his clothing while reviewing sensitive Clinton administration papers, officials said.
When asked, Berger said he returned some of the classified documents, which he found in his office, and all of the handwritten notes he had taken from the secure room, but said he could not locate two or three copies of the highly classified millennium terror report.
(Excerpt) Read more at story.news.yahoo.com ...
Or Craig Livingstone.
That's okay, because I don't agree with my scenario anymore myself. I went for my evening walk and kicked the thing around pretty good - the Rats have way too much political and emotional capital invested in the 9/11 kangaroo court to just scuttle it in so cavalier a manner. Besides, my scenario flunks Occam's Razor miserably.
I'm thinking now that I agree with your point about the Rats having someone inside, probably a low-level flunky on the commission staff who just happened to have access to the reading room VCR. This guy was probably given a few hundred bucks to snag the tape on a certain day when he was told to do so. Something went wrong and the tape was not recovered.
My guess would be that someone in the Bush Administration finally had enough of the spewing by the leftists, and leaked out the fact that they had hard proof of Berger's document theft - a video tape showing him stuffing documents down the front of his pants would be pretty convincing. Once that word got out, spiking the story would be like trying to conceal a sunrise - a fool's errand.
So the media did what they could - waited until as late in the day as possible to break the story. The Slimes and the Compost will have already filled their front pages with the latest Abu Ghraib stories and the latest photos of John Kerry, Superstud, so they could get away with running small wire service blurbs below the fold or maybe even inside the A section. That gives the Rats a full day to get their best spin teams mobilized and on the same page with the best focus-grouped explanation they can come up with, so that when the papers and the networks have to lead with the story, they can push the Rat version of events and downplay their culpability as much as possible.
Frankly, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see them get away with it yet again.
Thanks for that. I'm reading the middle and end of the thread so hadn't seen the other reference yet. Armed with Lindsey's name I googled and found articles. Here's one (Note the phrasing, just like I said "unduly held back by the Bush administration. Don't you love it?):
White House gives 9/11 panel access to Clinton documents
April 3, 2004 (about a week after Berger's testimony of March 24, incidentally)
excerpt:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal panel reviewing the Sept. 11 attacks will determine early next week whether thousands of classified counterterrorism documents from the Clinton administration were unduly held back by President Bush's aides.
The Bush administration granted the Sept. 11 commission access to the documents Friday after Bruce Lindsey, who was legal adviser to former President Clinton, said officials didn't turn over all of Clinton's records to the panel.
~snip~
Maybe Hillary knew this shoe would drop and that is why she was hesitant about speaking and Dem Convention.
See if this sounds right: Feds knew what Berger did, but due to his stature gave him a "pass" if he "voluntarily" returned all the records. He didn't return them all, so then the Feds executed the warrants.
Indeed. Thanks for the ping!
This is gonna get real good.....
Dims will try to quash it but if they dont quash it quick it will take on a life of it's own.
We could very well be witnessing the death knell of the Kerry campaign.
My mistake on the lawyers. I thought they said Lanny Davis. It's actually Lanny Breuer. How in the hell do you get two lawyers with a girlie name like Lanny?
OMG.
Just broke on AP that they think Berger took
documents that replaced documents he took earlier.
Is Ashcroft livid about this being leaked?
Chrissy will have to change the title of the "Special Broadcast" to "12 Dots and one MASSIVE Spot that could have prevented 9/11"
NO,
he is livid over Berger's actions.
Just thinking about the 9-11 commission saying "How could Wilson comment on documents he had never seen"???
Does anyone have a time line on all this. It is getting very confusing. Didn't Berger testify in April? When did they find out docs were missing,when did they search his home? Someone that is adept needs to timeline every aspect for us. You guys are making my head spin,there is so much great,very insightful profundity's here.
"We know what that means - The Toon may have also been stung."
SMILE! Lindsey was doing some work re: Clinton papers in post #624.
With anything Clinton.....things are not what they seem.
If that is true...
In February ?? .. That would be AFTER the FBI search
Perhaps this explains some of the elevated nastiness on the part of the Dems toward Bush the last six month.
Now THAT bumps this into a new category. It's not difficult to spin 'I dropped them into my pants...they crawled into my briefcase' but it's impossible to excuse document replacement!
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