SANDY BERGER Lucky document thief.
Posted on 04/07/2005 3:39:35 AM PDT by Liz
SANDY BERGER Lucky document thief.
Sticky-fingered Clinton aide Sandy Berger got off a lot easier than Miss Martha......because he only lied to the press about purloining top-secret documents.
"He may have lied to the press when he suggested he did it by mistake, but lying to the press isn't a federal crime. If he had lied to us, we would have prosecuted," said prosecutor Noel Hillman, who heads the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section.
Berger copped a misdemeanor plea last week and got off with a $10,000 fine after admitting he sneaked out of the National Archives five top-secret memos hidden in his clothes, ostensibly to review them in his office.
He also admitted using a scissors to cut three of them into little pieces to destroy them — his excuse appears to be that he was afraid of getting caught if he tried to sneak them back into the National Archives.
"It's reasonable to conclude that disposal was a better alternative than sneaking them back," Hillman said as he provided new details on questions still swirling around Berger's deal.
Meanwhile, the probe seems to have shifted to whether Clinton appointees at the Archives tried to cover for Berger. Archives chief John Carlin, a Clinton appointee, was bounced soon after the incident.
It's a violation of law to take classified documents, so Archives staffers should have called the FBI when they saw Berger do it — instead, they called Clinton's Mr. Fix-it, lawyer Bruce Lindsey.
The memos were multiple drafts on the millennium terror plot that concluded the Clinton administration escaped a terror attack by sheer luck and identified "glaring weaknesses" in Clinton-era security.
Some early drafts of the still-classified memo are said to be much more scathing in rapping Team Clinton than the final version.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
....proble seems to have shifted to the coverup-----
Now that's encouraging.
He belongs in jail instead he receives a slap on the hand. All because he worked for Clinton. America has a fair justice system, yea, right.
It's a violation of law to take classified documents, so Archives staffers should have called the FBI when they saw Berger do it — instead, they called Clinton's Mr. Fix-it, lawyer Bruce Lindsey.
FYI Ping
Cyncooper has pointed out that apparently Berger's plea deal is conditioned on Berger's "cooperation." This is what we demand to know:
(1) Have all the people who conspired with Berger been named and prosecuted?
(2) Did Berger actually destroy stolen docs--as he said---or are they being secreted for Berger's self-serving reasons: (a) for Hillary's campaign in exchange for Berger getting a political appointment, for (b) Berger's financial benefit in his oil consulting business, (c) to coverup 9/11?
(3) Berger admitted to stealing documents the Archives did not list as missing---what did he do with these? Is his plea deal conditioned on Berger returning these as well?
(4) who was in on the coverup?
Here's where you can send your concerns about Berger's plea deal. This is the judge who will sentence Berger. Caution: phone nunber is a prosecutor's personal phone line - keep messages short and civil.
U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson
c/o US District Court
US Dept of Justice
Judiciary Center
555 4th Street NW
Washington, DC 20530
PHONE (202) 514-6933
No kidding. And it really fries my bacon that he'll get his precious security clearance back in time for Hillary '08.
Question
Can Lindsey lose he law license over this also?
And I'm still waiting for the promised House Government Reform Committee hearings on the theft of classified documents.
Actually, my critter, RINO Tom Davis, the committee chair, has been conveniently busy with steroids in baseball.
My understanding is that he has to reapply for that security clearance .. and that there is no guarantee that he will get it
If they nail him in a cover-up----yeah.
Why am I getting the feeling that old Sandy sold out his friend Bruce :0)
"Sandy Berger rapes America"...should be the headline!
RINO, eh----you have my sincerest sympathy.
Heheh.....that I'd love to see.
Beger must agree testify about who put him up to it. That is the only way they should have given him a sweetheart deal.
Bruce Linsay is in the midddle of every Clinton administration mis-deed amd unpunished crime. He goes all the way back to the earliest bimbo eruptions and intimidation of women to keep Bubba out of jail.
Questions still swirling around Berger's deal? I gather the feds are getting feedback from a dissatisfied public on the Berger plea deal. Gosh, I wonder where that's coming from? (snicker)
Would be a kick if Sandy's pantload was the instrument of their final destruction.
I hadn't heard that. Glad there is still hope he will never be allowed in sensitive position again. He's nothing a Dem hack, who doesn't give a fig about his country.
Yes .. I was pretty ticked when I heard about it .. but cyncooper pointed out that the media/print wasn't accurate on the news reporting of this all
This has all the smells of watergate.
Thanks for the info - I plan to write.
It's important that justice be done, but it's also important that the appearance of justice be given; and this, while it may have been just for reasons we don't know (such as "cooperation"), sure doesn't have the appearance of justice. It looks like rank favoritism and corruption of the judicial system by influence from powerful interests.
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